Mafalda Leitão holds a degree in sociology from ISCTE-IUL (1992), a master's degree in social sciences (2005) and a PhD in sociology (2018), both from ICS-ULisboa.

After graduating, she worked as a sociologist at Portugal Telecom and AC Nielsen Portugal and was a lecturer at the Portuguese Institute of Administration and Marketing in 1999/2000. Since 2006, she has collaborated in several national and international research projects in the fields of family policies, work and family balance and gender equality. In 2008 she joined the International Network on Leave Policies & Research and has been co-responsible for the development of the annual country note on Portugal, which monitors the main developments of leave policies in Portugal. Since 2010, with the creation of the Observatory on Families and Family Policies (OFAP), she has been responsible for the annual report on the main developments in family policies and demographic trends in Portugal. Currently, she is an assistant researcher at ICS-ULisboa and a team member from the research project PARENT - Childbearing and Parenting in the context of low fertility, family change and the economic crisis; she also belongs to the Research Group LIFE - Life Paths, Inequality and Solidarity: Practices and Policies.

Her research interests include the impact of family policies on fertility trends and the promotion of gender equality in work/family balance; the latter already present in her PhD thesis on the sharing of the initial parental leave from the perspective of fathers and employers. 

Recent publications:

Leitão, M. (2019). Políticas de Família em 2016 e 2017, Principais Desenvolvimentos. Observatório das Famílias e das Políticas de Família, Lisboa: Observatórios do Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa.

Leitão, M. (2018). Natalidade e Políticas de Família. In Desafios Demográficos: A Natalidade. CES – Conselho Económico e Social, Coimbra: Almedina.

Wall, K., Leitão, M. (2018). Portugal country note. In S. Blum, A.Koslowski, A. Macht & P. Moss (Eds.). International Review on Leave Policies and Related Research 2018 (332-344). Available at: https://www.leavenetwork.org/leave-policies-research/.

Wall, K., Leitão, M. (2017). Fathers on Leave Alone in Portugal: Lived Experiences and Impact of Forerunner Fathers. In M. O'Brien & K. Wall (Eds.), Comparative Perspectives on Work-Life Balance and Gender Equality Fathers on Leave Alone (pp. 45-67). Switzerland: Springer Open.