My research focuses on the analysis of socio-cultural determinants of inequality at the meso-level. I am interested in analysing how the physical and cultural context in which individuals are embedded in shape their opportunities across the life-course. I have investigated this theme by looking specifically at neighbourhoods, communities, and cultural norms as meso-level determinants of inequality.

 

More specifically, my current research agenda focuses on understanding how different experiences of scarcity at the meso-level, affect individuals social cohesion and civic engagement,  on investigating the relationship between infrastructural inequality and social cohesion in central and southern Africa, and on the centrality of paid work in contemporary societies across the world.

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I am currently a post-doctoral researcher at La Statale, University of Milan, within the ERC project DESPO, working on the political and societal changes that have occurred as a consequence of European deindustrialisation.

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I was the beneficiary of the IMERA/CNRS-LEST Chair The Worlds of Labour/Les mondes du travail 2024-2025 in Marseille, developing the project WORKinTRANSITION. I have then become an associate researcher at LEST since March 2025.

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I am also a Research Affiliate at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) at the University of Cape Town where I spent a 5-months research visit in 2023 with Murray Leibbrandt.

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From January 2020 to March 2021 I was based at the Institut national d'études démographiques (INED) in Paris where I worked on the international project DICE investigating the role of parental background on children educational attainment in France. I remained there affiliated to Unit 6: Housing, spatial inequalities and trajectories until March 2025.

I received a PhD (2020) in applied socio and economic research from the Institute for Socio and Economic Research at the University of Essex and a MSc (2013) in Economics from the University of Trento.

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Together with my best co-author and greatest love, Laura Silva, we founded the consultancy firm Fre.Le which focuses on fostering inclusive and sustainable communities.

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E-mail: franco.bonomibezzo(at)outlook.com

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