mar c. espadafor
ENES

How can we reduce inequality through research and policy?

About me Research areas Publications Projects
About

I work at the intersection of inequality research and strategic foresight — using causal designs to find where advantage is transmitted, and building the data and scenarios that let institutions act before it consolidates.

From Almería, one of the sunniest cities in Europe.

You can read more about me here More about me

Now

Deputy Director at the Directorate for Public Policy, Presidency of the Government of Spain. I coordinate a cross-ministerial team and lead the analytical work behind priority reforms: the 2026 extraordinary regularisation, the Plan de Integración y Ciudadanía, and the organic law on the protection of minors in digital environments.

Trained

PhD in Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute (2023), with Fabrizio Bernardi. Postdoc at UNED within MapIneq, Research Fellow at INVEST (Turku), Visiting Scholar at Wisconsin–Madison. I teach causal inference at RECSM (UPF) every summer.

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You can see my full CV here CV (PDF)

Latest

Recent publications

All publications

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01 Research area 01 / 04

Educational inequalities

Family origin still shapes who makes it through school — but not everywhere, and rarely through the channels we assume. I use causal designs to locate the moments at which education systems either transmit advantage or interrupt it.

Selected work

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02 Research area 02 / 04

Work & labour markets

Automation, AI and credential rules are redrawing who works, at what, and for how much. I study who is exposed to that restructuring at labour-market entry, and for whom exposure turns into a wage or mobility penalty.

Selected work

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03 Research area 03 / 04

Institutions & public policy

Welfare states, school systems, cities and legal status are the machinery that distributes opportunity. I work on both sides of the evidence: producing it, and using it inside the Presidency of the Government of Spain.

Selected work

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04 Research area 04 / 04

Foresight & indicators

Inequality that is not measured cannot be governed. I build the cohort data, the indicators and the scenarios that let institutions see inequality forming — years before it shows up in the outcomes we usually track.

FORTHCOMING

  • EPOCH-ES, released as an open dataset
  • A listening pipeline for administrative processes
  • New ways of building country indicators
See what is coming
Drawing of a graveyard; the central headstone reads "she was super productive".