Mireia Borrell-Porta completed her doctoral studies at the LSE with a thesis that examined the joint role played by gender norms and economic incentives in individuals’ decisions to care and work.
Her research interests lay in the intersection between welfare politics and social economics. Part of her research focuses on gender norms: their malleability across different life stages and their impact on individuals’ decisions to care for family and work. She also has an interest in the examination of welfare policy reforms from the point of view of socio-economic inequalities. She is particularly interested in the relevance of her research for public policy and has engaged in consultancy projects for governmental bodies (e.g. Public Health England).
She has been a Teaching Fellow at the European Institute (LSE) for two years, and a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford with Prof. Mary Daly, assessing and monitoring family policies in the UK since 1997. The outcome has been the database Oxford Family Policy Database, accessible at https://familypolicyox.web.ox.ac.uk/. She has wide teaching experience at undergraduate and graduate level and has taught at the LSE and at the University of Oxford on economics, political economy, welfare states, social policy, and European integration.
Her academic experience has been complemented with a two-year stint in the Catalan government, designing and implementing its foreign action policy towards the EU and other international actors, first as a Director of European and Mediterranean Affairs and then as Secretary for Foreign Action and the European Union, reporting directly to the Catalan Minister for Foreign Affairs.