Dr. Maria Sironi
Social Demographer, Associate Professor in Social Statistics, University of Padua
I am a social demographer, currently an Associate Professor in Social Statistics at the Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Padua
I obtained my PhD in Demography at University of Pennsylvania in 2013. I held a position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford and Nuffield College between 2013 and 2015, and I started as an Assistant Professor in Quantitative Sociology at University College London - Social Research Institute in 2015. I have been an Associate Professor in Quantitative Sociology at University College London - Social Research Institute. from 2018 until September 2023.
My research is focused on determinants and consequences of different life course trajectories. During my PhD I have investigated the transition to adulthood, specifically the transition to economic independence of young adults in the United States and in Europe, and how parental social class influence the transition to adulthood in different contexts. I have been the PI of a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Grant (2015-2018), that looked at how different fertility and partnership trajectories influence both mental and physical health of older people in the United Kingdom, United States, and several other European countries. I have worked on a range of other topics which include the relationship between fertility and subjective well-being, the changing meaning of cohabitation over time in different countries, gender inequality, and sexual minorities.
Currently, I am studying the interdependencies between living alone, loneliness and social isolation, and how isolation trajectories over the life course influence physical and mental health.
My research has been published in journals such as Demography, Population and Development Review, Population Studies, Demographic Research, European Sociological Review, Advances in Life Course Research, Population Space and Place.