Teresa Fehrenbach (she/her) holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Freiburg and an M.A. in International Relations from the Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University, and the University of Potsdam. She has been a doctoral researcher at the Center for International and Comparative Political Economy since July 2023.

Her research focuses on gender and taxation, with additional interests in social and labor market policies as well as feminist political economy. In her dissertation, she examines the politics of married couples’ taxation, with a particular focus on why countries shift from joint to individual taxation. This question is highly relevant from a feminist perspective, as joint taxation creates work disincentives for secondary earners—predominantly women—thereby increasing women’s financial dependency. Individual taxation, by contrast, eliminates these disincentives and represents a more gender-egalitarian approach to taxing married couples.

WS 25/26: Globale Sozialpolitik

SoSe 25: Gender und Sozialpolitik 

WS 24/25: Gender in Steuer- und Sozialpolitik: Feministische Kritik und Reformansätze

Journal Articles

Fehrenbach, T. (2026). The politics of married couples’ taxation: understanding the shift to the individual tax unit. Journal of European Public Policy, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2026.2621236