Personal website:
https://sites.google.com/site/federicameluzzi1
Contact:
References:
- Pr. Pierre Cahuc – SciencesPo
- Pr. Patrick Kline – University of California, Berkeley
- Pr. Camille Landais – London School of Economics
- Pr. Roland Rathelot – CREST, GENES, Institut Polytechnique de Paris
- Pr. Arne Uhlendorff – CREST, CNRS, Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Research fields:
Primary fields: Labor Economics
Secondary fields: Public Economics, Gender
Presentation:
I am a PhD candidate in Economics, under the supervision of Prof. Pierre Cahuc and Prof. Arne Uhlendorff.
I am an applied labor economist, with research interests at the intersection with public economics and gender. My research examines key issues of labor market inequality, with a focus on three main areas: the role of peers, firms and public policies in shaping gender norms, gender differences in job-search behavior, and the effects of pay transparency on firm wage premia.
Job Market Paper:
The College Melting Pot: Peers, Culture and Women’s Job Search
Abstract: Gender norms are widely recognized as key determinants of persistent gender gaps in the labor market, yet our understanding of their drivers remains limited. This paper addresses this gap by examining how cultural assimilation from college peers influences women’s early-career labor market decisions. I leverage idiosyncratic cross-cohort variation in peers’ geographical origins within Master’s programs, combined with unique administrative and survey data covering the universe of college students in Italy. The main finding is that exposure to female classmates born in areas with a more egalitarian gender culture significantly increases women’s labor supply, primarily through increased uptake of full-time jobs. Specifically, socialization with peers from areas with a one standard deviation higher female labor force participation offsets much of the negative impact of limited female role models in childhood, resulting in a 21-40% decrease in early-career gender gaps. Using innovative data on students’ job-search preferences and beliefs, I find that reductions in the perceived importance of temporal flexibility and learning about the job offer distribution primarily drive the observed effects. Because of marked asymmetry in peer effects, education policies promoting diversity could play a crucial role in shifting gender norms and advancing gender equality in the labor market.