Dr Pablo Brugarolas

I am an applied economist working on the economics of education, family policy, and labour markets, with a focus on inequality of opportunity and gender inequality. My research relies on causal empirical methods and evidence synthesis to address policy-relevant questions about early childhood investments and work–family constraints.

Some of my recent work examines the impacts of universal childcare and early childhood education policies on children’s development and mothers’ employment. In parallel, I am developing a project on gender, work, and technological change that studies whether the expansion of work-from-home opportunities can mitigate the motherhood penalty in employment, exploiting pre-pandemic shifts in remote-work feasibility across occupations.

I obtained my PhD in Economics from Universitat de Girona in 2025. My doctoral research combines meta-analysis and quasi-experimental designs to reassess the evidence on universal childcare policies. It shows that once publication bias and weak design bias are accounted for, average estimated effects of preschool programs are considerably smaller than previously reported. The thesis also provides causal evidence that early gains can be weakened by later austerity shocks in primary education, highlighting the importance of sustained policy investment over the life course.

I am currently a Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at Universitat de Girona. I am affiliated with the Women in Social and Public Policy Research Hub at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and with the Economics of Inequality and Poverty Analysis (EQUALITAS) research group.