About me

I am a doctoral researcher in labour economics at Ghent University. My doctoral research studies how parenthood shapes labour market outcomes for men and women differently. Rather than simply documenting these inequalities, my research aims to understand where they come from and how they can be addressed. I do this by looking at how employees experience and anticipate the career consequences of having children, by studying how employers evaluate parents and non-parents in hiring contexts, and by examining whether workplace policies such as employer-provided childcare and telework can help employees better combine work and family life.

My academic curiosity does not stop there. A personal interest in the lived experiences of women at work sparked a research interest in the so-called three M’s (i.e., menstruation, maternity, and menopause) and the ways in which these aspects of women’s lives intersect with workplace inequality. I have since taken up this topic as a line of research in its own right, and more work in this area is forthcoming.

I hope to carry this curiosity into an international academic career. In 2026, I took a first step in that direction as a guest researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. This experience confirmed my ambition to pursue an academic career beyond Belgium. I will be on the academic job market in 2026–2027. You can reach me at morien.elhaj@ugent.be.

This page was last updated on 14 June 2026.