Roman Blanco, who is in the final year of her doctoral research at the EUI, has been examining topics related to labour market and family decisions, addressing them from a gender angle. “Gender issues are something I really care about,” she commented, specifying that her research focuses on how gendered behaviours, as well as geographic environment, affect both labour market and family decisions for couples and individuals. “Although my thesis mainly focuses on the decisions of couples, in other parts of my work I also look at those of individuals,’’ she explained.
Roman Blanco has carried out part of her research with fellow EUI Department of Economics researcher Belén Rodríguez Moro. Together, they have examined the effects of the birth of the first child on the quality of the relationship within a couple. They analysed couples from the United Kingdom, using a longitudinal survey dataset that included questions related to couples’ relationships, focusing on how partners work together, their shared hobbies, the time they spend in common, and how happy they feel in their relationship. With all the information gathered, they built a measure of ‘relationship quality’, that is the non-material gains one receives while being in a relationship. Afterwards, they analysed the changes in relationship quality after the crucial moment of the birth of the first child.
"The main finding from this research is interesting, but sad," reveals Roman Blanco. "When a child is born, there is a large decrease in relationship quality. Moreover, this decrease is very persistent: individuals report a lower relationship quality for up to seven years after the birth of their first child. This decrease is specific to the couple, meaning that while relationship quality decreases, we do not observe a reduction in the level of general happiness that individuals report. On the contrary, the level of happiness of the two individual partners increases right after birth, thanks to the child. This increase in happiness coming from the child somehow compensates the decrease in happiness attached to the relationship."
Roman Blanco found the reasons for such a phenomenon in how the partners distribute their time and their daily tasks, who takes responsibilities at home, and who is active in the labour market. After having a child, the amount of time spent in the labour market declines substantially for the mother, while the time spent at home increases. As for the father, there is no change in the time spent in the labour market, and a slight increase in the time spent doing housework. Roman Blanco analysed different ‘typologies of couples’, from traditional (where the woman takes a larger share of the household chores), to egalitarian couples (household tasks are split equally between the partners) and ‘counter-traditional couples’ (men take a larger portion of the domestic work). No matter what the division of tasks was like prior to childbirth, afterwards women take a larger share of the home tasks, while men take a predominant role in the labour market. Roman Blanco reported that couples that underwent a bigger change in the distribution of responsibilities at home and in the labour market - egalitarian couples and counter-traditional ones - were those that suffered a more significant decrease in relationship quality.
This research is part of the first chapter of Roman Blanco’s thesis, which includes a second chapter aimed at validating the measure of the relationship quality. The third chapter focuses on how couples’ occupations affect their migration patterns and whether couples decide to migrate to follow the job of the husband or of the wife, or not migrate at all. “There has been a decreasing trend in couples’ migration over the last decades.” She explained that even if one partner finds a job in a new location, there are often difficulties with finding an occupation for the other partner. Roman Blanco adds that challenges associated with relocating people doing very specific jobs is also notable, “it is certainly more difficult to relocate an astrophysicist than a teacher.”
Roman Blanco’s research has led her be a member of the EUI Department of Economics initiative ‘Women in Villa La Fonte’, which takes its name from the home of the department. The initiative aims to gather women working in economics and to foster discussions around gender related issues. She recalls that, following an EUI event in honour of the 2023 Nobel prize for Economics Claudia Goldin, economics researchers and EUI Professor Andrea Ichino noticed a keen interest in topics related to women in economics. This led to the start of the ‘Gender Talks’. The monthly series, organised by ‘Women in Villa La Fonte’, has been running successfully since February 2024, allowing a dynamic exchange of ideas and perspectives in gender economics. Moreover, thanks to EUI Professor Alessandro Tarozzi and ‘Women in Villa La Fonte’, the department held a small conference on gender economics for International Women’s Day last year, and a second one is planned for March 2025.
"I am very pleased with how the department is supporting the Gender Talks series,” said Roman Blanco. “It is important to keep the discussion on gender issues alive both at the EUI Department of Economics and in everybody’s mind. This is crucial in the world of economics, where women are still under-represented."
Olatz Roman Blanco is a researcher at the EUI Department of Economics. Her thesis title is ‘Essays in the Economics of Couples’. Olatz’s thesis supervisor is former EUI Professor Thomas Crossley, while her co-supervisor is EUI Professor Alexander Monge Naranjo.