Dr. Alessandra Minello

Assistant Professor, Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Padua, Italy

Dr. Alessandra Minello is a social demographer studying gender issues across several domains. Her research interests include work and education, fertility intentions, as well as sexuality and homicides.

She received her PhD in Sociology and Social Research from the University of Trento, Italy, where she compared the factors affecting the educational expectations and aspirations of children of immigrant and native students in Italy and Europe. During her PhD, she also worked as an associate researcher at the Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy (Bocconi University of Milan, Italy), where she analyzed data on human capital with respect to the children of immigrants and second-generation Italians, and proposed a comparison to native Italian children. As a postdoctoral researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, she engaged in a project on the determinants of gender-specific competencies and decision-making with respect to educational trajectories and their consequences on job entry and careers in Germany.

Currently, Dr. Minello is an Assistant Professor at the Department os Statistical Sciences in the University of Padua, Italy, where she teaches historical demography, demography and tourism, as well as measures and statistical methods for social service. She collaborates with the Economic Uncertainty and Fertility in Europe (EU-FER) project, which uses a cross-country comparative approach to generate new knowledge on if, how, and under what circumstances economic uncertainty matters for fertility in contemporary Europe. As the coordinator of the SELFY (Sexual and Emotional LiFE of Youths) project, Dr. Minello and her collaborators evaluate changes in sexual behavior and opinions of young Italian university students in order to understand gender-based differences in perceptions and the factors that determine these differences.

More recently, her research has focused on women in academia, the effect of the pandemic on research, and the balance between care work and academic life.