At the Gender Lab, we unite researchers from multiple fields to study gender equity. This page lists our researchers and their research interests.
Gender Lab
Advancing equity in workplaces, markets, and society
Bridging the gap: Shaping policy, empowering futures.
The Gender Lab is a collaborative research initiative designed to investigate the factors contributing to the gender gap in both participation and advancement in the labour market. Bringing together the expertise of leading scholars across different academic departments, the lab aims to provide a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the structural, societal, and individual barriers that affect gender equality in employment.
By leveraging diverse perspectives and methodologies, the Gender Lab seeks to uncover new insights that can inform policy interventions and organisational practices to close the gender gap and promote equitable opportunities for all.
News
Loading...
Join our mailing list
Contact us: gender-lab@unimelb.edu.au
Beliefs and gender
- Erkal, N., & Koh, B. H. (2025). Gender and (inaccurate) beliefs. In Elgar Encyclopedia of Behavioural and Experimental Economics, 220-222.
- Erkal, N., Koh, B. H., & Gangadharan, L. (2024) Gender Differences in Attribution of Own Outcomes. In B. Kebede (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Experimental Social Science, Forthcoming.
- Cameron, L., Contreras Suarez, D., & Setyonalury, D. (2024). Leveraging Women’s Views to Influence Gender Norms around Women Working: Evidence from an Online Intervention in Indonesia. The World Bank.
- Ahsan, R., Contreras Suarez, D., & Moniruzzaman, M. (2025). The Purdah Meets the Factory: Exposure to Female Employment and Son Preference.
- De Haas, R., Baranov, V., Matavelli, I., & Grosjean, P. (2024) Masculinity Around the World. CEPR Discussion Paper No. 19493.
- Erkal, N., Gangadharan, L., & Koh, B. H. (2024) Discrimination in Evaluation Criteria: The Role of Beliefs versus Outcomes. Working paper.
- Erkal, N., Koh, B. H., & Xu, L. (2024) Gender and Demand for Social Comparison Information. Working paper.
Health
- La Brooy, C., Sabanovic, H., Méndez, S. J., Yong, J., Scott, A., Elshaug, A. G., & Prang, K. H. (2025). Charge what you think you're worth’: a qualitative study exploring the gender pay gap in medicine and the role of price transparency. Internal Medicine Journal.
- Maselko, J., Collins, A., Baranov, V., Bhalotra, S., Escobar Carias, M. S., Frost, A., ... & Sikander, S. (2025). An examination of multiple illness and social related stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal and child mental health; findings from a birth cohort in rural Pakistan. BMC Public Health 25, 1047.
- Saxby K & Hammoud M. (2025). Setting the Standard: No LGBTI+ Health Equity without Data Equity Medical Journal of Australia, 222 (1), 52-52.
- Saxby K, Hutchinson-Tovar S, Bishop GM, Down I, Spencer R, Petrie D & Aitken Z. (2025) Gender identity and mental health inequalities 2001-2022: Population-level evidence from an Australian cohort study. BMJ Mental Health, 28(1), e301277.
- Carias, M. E., Baranov, V., Maselko, J., Biroli, P., & Bhalotra, S. (2024). Maternal Mental Health Responses to COVID-19 Shocks and Uncertainty in Rural Pakistan. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 114, 407-411.
- Frost, A., Collins, A., Chung, E. O., et al. (2024). Trauma exposure among young children in rural Pakistan: Associations with gender, mental health, and cognitive skills. BMC Psychology,12, 454.
- Laß, I., Vera-Toscano, E., & Wooden, M. (2024). Working from Home, COVID-19, and Job Satisfaction. ILR Review, 78(2), 330-354.
- Sevim, D., Baranov, V., Bhalotra, S., Maselko, J., & Biroli, P. (2024). Trajectories of Early Childhood Skill Development and Maternal Mental Health. Journal of Human Resources, 59(S), S365-S401.
- Agnoletto, M., & Repetto, M. (2025) Gender Mix Prescription: Is it the Cure for Job Satisfaction and Retention?
Gender inequality
- Ganegoda, D. B., Shukla, J., & Shapiro, D. L. (2024). Garnering support for social justice: When and why is “Yes” likelier for “Allies” versus “Disadvantaged Group Advocates”? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 182, 104332.
- Gangadharan, L., Gertsberg, M., Levy, J., & Xiao, E. (2024) Who wants to move first? Life Course Centre Working Paper Series No. 2024-01.
Intersectionality
- Jones, D., Recalde, M.P., Winichakul, K. P. (2025) Differential listening in diverse teams. Working paper.
Family and household
- Escobar Carías, M., Black, N., Johnston, D. et al. (2025) The gender gap in children’s educational time investments in informal settlements. Rev Econ Household.
- Haight, Sarah C., et al. (2025) Female agency and probable depression in the perinatal period and beyond: Longitudinal findings from rural Pakistan. Social Science & Medicine, 367, 117704.
- Laß, I., & Wooden, M. (2025). Working from home and bi‐directional work–family conflict: Longitudinal evidence from Australian parents. Journal of Marriage and Family, Volume 87, Issue 3.
- Ambler, K., Jones, K., & Recalde, M. P. (2024). Experimental measures of intra-household resource control. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 227, 106705.
- Escobar Carías, M., Black, N., Johnston, D., Sweeney, R., Barker, F. S., Rosnaena, Syamsul, S., & Waka, T. (2024). "The Gender Gap in Children’s Educational Time Investments in Informal Settlements." Centre for Health Economics, Monash University.
- Yucel, D., & Laß, I. (2024). Working From Home and Work–Family Conflict: The Importance of Role Salience. Social Indicators Research, 172, 947–983.
- Cameron, L. A., Contreras Suarez, D., & Tseng, Y.-P. (2023) Women’s Transitions in the Labour Market as a Result of Childbearing: The Challenges of Formal Sector Employment in Indonesia. IZA Discussion Paper No. 16136.
Finance
- Gertsberg, M. (2024). Navigating Policy Specificity in Academia: The Evolution of Sexual Harassment Policies around #MeToo. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 114, 284–291.
- Gertsberg, M. (2025) The Unintended Consequences of #MeToo: Evidence from Research Collaborations in Economics and Finance. Working paper.
- Gertsberg, M., Hou, W., Smajlbegovic, E., Urban, D., & Verwijmeren, P. (2024) Who Scores the Gig? Gender Equality Initiatives and Female Selection. Gender Equality Initiatives and Female Selection.
- Gertsberg, M., Mollerstrom, J., & Pagel, M. (2021) Gender Quotas and Support for Women in Board Elections. NBER Working Paper No. w28463.
Upcoming events
Past events
Executive Committee
Michelle Escobar Carias
Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Economics)
michelle.escobarcarias@unimelb.edu.au
Affiliates
| Name | Research interests |
|---|---|
| Victoria Baranov | Determinants and consequences of gender norms, masculinity, fatherhood, IPV and gender-based violence, gender & mental health, gender and economic development |
| Lisa Cameron | Gender inequality in developing countries, gender norms |
| Diana Contreras Suarez | Women inequality in health, education and work; gender norms |
| Nisvan Erkal | Gender gaps in leadership outcomes, gender differences in performance evaluation |
| Michelle Escobar Carias | Domestic violence, maternal mental health, maternal investments, women's labor force participation |
| Marina Gertsberg | Corporate governance/board of directors, gender bias in academia |
| Jan Kabatek | Family, parenthood, sexual minorities |
| Maria Recalde | Gender differences in task allocations at work, non-promotable tasks, negotiation, speaking up, influence, intersectionality |
| Karinna Saxby | Gender identity, trans and gender diverse |
| Reshad Ahsan | International trade, development |
| Kathryn Baragwanath | Gender and environment, women in politics |
| Michelle Brown | Pay communications |
| Felix Capp | Family economics, Australian policy review, Fatherhood and role of fathers |
| Andrew Clarke | Gendered outcomes in immigrant labour and health outcomes; labour market and health outcomes for LGBTIQA+ populations |
| Deshani B. Ganegoda | Social and organisational justice, allyship, voice behaviour, caregiver discrimination |
| Kanika Goyal | Career progression of women, taxation and gender |
| Dean Hoi | Migration, economic history, labor economics, political economy, and cultural economics |
| Xinran Hu | Marriage, household decision-making, female empowerment |
| Sanni Kiviholma | Migration, labour markets, gender |
| Inga Lass | Gender inequality in the labour market and in unpaid work |
| Ruikun Ma | Labour force participation, education attainment, intra-household bargaining power |
| Cristiano Mantovani | Macroeconomics, misallocation, gender gaps |
| Iderlina Mateo-Babiano | Gender, transport and logistics |
| Camilla Mattaliano Belforti | The care economy, gendered migration, migrant domestic work, transformative policy making |
| Susan Mendez | Gender in the medical labour market |
| Kieu-Trang Nguyen | The evolution and impact of gender norms |
| Maria Elisavet Peppa | Non-binary gender economics, LGBTQ+ economics |
| Kushneel Avneet Prakash | Gender difference in personality (locus of control) on mental health |
| Martina Repetto | Gender bias in healthcare, labour market inequalities, domestic violence |
| Faisal Sohail | Time use, labor supply, entrepreneurship |
| Yobin Timilsena | Spatial macroeconomics, spatial inequality, the economics of education |
| Emily Tran | Gender stereotypes across task domains, gender differences in outcomes, gender biases and discrimination in performance evaluation |
| Ravisha Wellappuli | Intimate partner violence, gender-based discrimination |
| Ruohan Wu | Gender inequality, Applied microeconomics, labour economics |
| Renee Zhou | Gender gap in labour market, trade, and gender |
Gender Lab Seed Grants
The Gender Lab awards Seed grants to high-quality and innovative PhD student projects annually. Applications are open for economics and finance students at the University of Melbourne.
We encourage students with fairly developed projects that require funding to cover direct research costs to apply for this seed grant. For example, anyone needing funds to cover data access or data collection costs, including paying participants for their participation in surveys or experiments, as well as traveling to conduct field work. The maximum budget for each seed grant is $5,000 AUD.
Introducing 2025's winners
Ruikun Ma is investigating how male-surplus refugee migration in post-WWII Taiwan disrupted traditional kinship structures and fostered more egalitarian gender norms, using newly digitised spatial data on Juancun settlements linked to women’s life-course outcomes.
Maria Elisavet Peppa is studying the effect of family and domestic violence that sexual and gender minorities experience on their economic and mental health outcomes using administrative data from Australia.
Read more about their research here.
Introducing 2024's winners
Renee Zhou is studying whether market access, induced by transportation infrastructure, affected the gender gap in labor market outcomes in China.
In her project, Xinran Hu is seeking to understand how coresidence norms, which guide whose parent(s) a married couple lives with, influence the couple's decision-making.
Read more about their research here.