Joanna Venator

Joanna Venator is an assistant professor at Boston College. She earned her Ph.D. in economics at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on how gender and family structure interact with human capital formation and labor market outcomes.

Venator’s dissertation focuses on how married couples make decisions about where to work and live, the gender differences in post-move labor market outcomes, and the role that social welfare programs, such as Unemployment Insurance, play in dual-earner households’ migration decisions.

In addition to her work on dual-earner migration, Venator has published papers exploring the impacts of pollution on educational outcomes, the effects of abortion clinic closures on fertility outcomes, and gender differences in college major choice.

She is a graduate student affiliate of UW-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, the Center for Demography and Ecology, and the Collaborative for Reproductive Equity. She earned her B.A. in economics and psychology from Swarthmore College.