Marcella Corsi, Italy
Succeeds in breaking the gender stereotype mould!
Marcella is an exceptional role model for all women in Europe.
Professor Marcella Corsi is a highly successful woman in the world of academia, having achieved international professional recognition from her peers. Her areas of expertise are statistics and economics, still principally populated by men. Marcella is an expert in short term analysis, in the context of labour economics and the role of polity (government).
She is also the first woman to have graduated in her family.
Marcella really struggled to achieve such a top level position, despite working as hard, if not harder than her many male counterparts. The ever-present gender barriers, which continue to characterise both the academic profession and the labour market, especially in her field of study, tested her resolve – often because she was female.
Marcella’s greatest achievement has been to reconcile her active, busy working life with a happy family life: she is happily married and she is the mother of two children aged 15 and 12 years old. Her family lives in Brussels and she commutes every weekend, between Rome and Brussels, to spend her free time with them. Within this family, all stereotypes are broken: the mother is an economist (predominantly a male profession) while the father is an interpreter/translator (typical female profession). Both parents share the responsibilities of managing their family life, and show to their children that equality of women and men it is not just a dream!
She has worked as consultant for OECD, European Parliament and European Commission, and for several Italian institutions. Her research focuses on issues related to Social Inclusion, Social protection and Income distribution.
Relevant Information
Marcella Corsi’s work (2009) reveals that In Italy, women in the 21st Century continue to undertake much unpaid work, as well as time-consuming responsibility as ‘care giver’, for the sick and elderly. Despite acquiring a range of skills, they are however not deemed transferable when seeking work in alternative labour market niches. These roles therefore determine the limited kinds of labour market experience they have, which results in their disadvantaged positions when actively seeking work.
Marcella’s work also underscores the gendered nature of poverty. For instance, findings reveal that poverty is increasingly feminised and especially affects single mothers as well as elderly women.
