Dr. Marzia Fontana is a feminist economist with over 25 years of research and teaching experience.
Her research focuses on gender inequalities and international trade, labour markets, macroeconomic policies, unpaid care and care provision. More recently, she has also worked on disability rights and inclusion. She provides research and advisory support on these topics to international organisations and bilateral agencies, including the ILO, UN Women, UNCTAD, UNIDO, FAO, UNDP, the European Parliament, Finland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DFAT and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Her recent work includes the development of gender-responsive employment and sectoral policy tools for the ILO and UN Women, as well as pioneering research on disability-inclusive trade. She holds a DPhil in Economics from IDS, University of Sussex. Marzia has been a member of the UK Women’s Budget Group and the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and has served on the editorial board of Feminist Economics. These roles complement her longstanding work on applying feminist economic analysis to public policy. She enjoys teaching and has worked with postgraduate students at IDS, the Gender Institute at LSE, and SOAS, University of London, over many years. She was previously a Research Fellow and Convenor of the MA in Gender and Development at IDS. Her fieldwork experience is concentrated in Asia—including Vietnam, Lao PDR, Cambodia and India—as well as Fiji.