Alifia Marina Syarfi

Alifia Marina Syarfi is a PhD candidate in Economics at SOAS University of London.

Her research explores the intersections of gender, caregiving responsibilities, and labour market transitions across the formal and informal sectors, with a particular focus on Indonesia since the 1998 economic crisis. Positioned within labour economics, feminist economics, and development studies, her work examines how gender norms influence employment trajectories in the Global South. She aims to integrate theoretical insights with empirical evidence from quantitative methodologies to investigate gendered employment dynamics and informality in developing economies.

Alifia holds an MSc in Development Economics from SOAS University of London and an MSc in International Development from the University of Edinburgh, supported respectively by the Arryman Scholarship and the Indonesian Government’s LPDP Scholarship. She also earned a Bachelor of Economics from Universitas Gadjah Mada, graduating as the Best Graduate of her Department and the Fastest Graduate of her Faculty. 

Before joining SOAS, Alifia worked as a Project Consultant for the Asian Development Bank, evaluating interventions to improve Indonesia’s national iron and folic acid supplementation programme and reduce anaemia prevalence. She also participated in international scholarship programmes at the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and Universität für Bodenkultur Wien.

• Labour Economics
• Gender
• Informal Economy
• Political Economy
• Monetary Economics