Petra Persson

“My early childhood memories are bright. I remember things such as going
to the beach, planting potatoes or flowers in the garden, and skiing with my
family.”

With two parents as secondary school teachers, education was simply a part of
Petra’s life.

“Mom taught foreign languages, and Dad taught science and math. I fondly remember my younger brother and I accompanying them to the classroom on our own school breaks. I look back now and appreciate my parents’ 28-hour work weeks that allowed us to spend so much time together.”

Love and gratitude for the time spent together are themes in many of Petra’s childhood
memories.

“I broke my leg during the summer when I was three years old and had to spend four
weeks in the hospital. My parents split their time between staying with me and being
home with my siblings just so I wouldn’t have to spend a minute alone. Dad came in the morning and stayed with me all day; Mom arrived in the evening and slept overnight There was a life-size poster of the human body on the wall, and I remember Dad teaching me all about the different body parts.”

Petra says that her family life was “wonderfully normal” until she turned 13 when everything turned much, much darker.

“My family situation changed dramatically. One of my siblings developed a mental illness, which meant violence and unpredictable controlling behavior surrounded me every day. What started with some rules about where to put my shoes or my bike when I came home from school slowly turned into more rules. Then some violence. Then lots of rules and lots of violence – against both me and my mom. I would spend hours each day cycling around the neighborhood simply to avoid going home.”

When Petra was 17, her world collapsed with the sudden death of her beloved mother

“Mom died from the injuries she sustained. In hindsight, it’s unfathomable that I didn’t call the police – that none of us did. But when ensnared in this living nightmare, telling someone just didn’t seem like a viable option to us.”

As an adult, Petra has come to understand that not reporting domestic violence is common; in fact, it may be the rule rather than the exception.

“If you were to encounter a random person who would physically harm you, then of course you would call the police. But when abuse builds up slowly over months, then systemically over years, that natural mechanism somehow gets broken.”

Petra explains how domestic violence is often under-reported. In fact, victims who do go to the police frequently take back their charges before the trial.

“In my case, after much hesitation, I agreed to testify after Mom’s death.”

With arresting honesty, Petra relays the story of her life.

“I have half siblings on my father’s side that are considerably older, so we had not spent much time together. But I remember how, in the middle of what felt like a total chaos, my eldest half-brother Peter came and told us to move in with him, his wife, and their two children.”

Petra describes this defining moment in her life with such grace and gratitude; it’s impossible not to be touched by the love of her “new” family.

“We were thrown into this cozy and well-functioning home with lots of laughter and warmth. Just sitting around the breakfast table was lovely and slowly redefined what family could be, where the only drama was restricted to the everyday mishaps that come with having a three-year-old and a five-year-old: a lost pacifier, spilled milk, a missing teddy bear. Staying there somehow brought back the reality of what home should be: it’s not a place where you’re afraid to put your shoe. It’s somewhere you want to go every single day.”

Petra treasures what these family members did for her.

“Peter and his wife adopted such important roles for us, and I will always be grateful to them.”

Petra is especially thankful to Peter for the ways in which he tried to instill in her a sense of security after all she had endured.

“Peter is huge: 190 cm and 100 kilos; I’m pretty tiny at 168 cm and half his weight.

After I moved in, he signed us up for a course in martial arts. When we arrived at the jiu-jitsu club, the trainer said: ‘Welcome, but you cannot train together when you are twice her size.’ Peter calmly said: ‘That’s why we’re here. I’m going to be her partner and she is going to learn how to defend herself.’”

And that, she did. Petra proved that size and strength are secondary to skill. Jiu-jitsu increased her self-esteem and gave her tools that helped her begin to heal and feel safe. The gratitude she describes is palpable.

“The fact Peter that signed us up for that course just says so much about how he thought of all possible ways to give me a little more confidence.”

A year later, Petra graduated from high school at the top in her class. But when the time came for her to apply to university, her family’s recent past overshadowed her decision.

“I had always wanted to become a physician, but my goal had switched from studying medicine to simply obtaining a degree that could land me a job abroad.’’

Petra chose the Stockholm School of Economics because of its large share of graduates that launch international careers.

“To be honest, I didn’t quite know what I got myself into. But I stumbled upon a great school and a subject that I’ve come to love.’’

Petra smiles as she remembers her first day.

“There were 200 of us who had never met before listening to SSE’s president say: ‘Look around you. Many of these people will become your friends for life. You may even marry someone in this room. The relationships you make with the people here will last forever.’ That sounded so crazy to me! But do you know what? He turned out to be right. Many of my closest friends today were in that room; the wedding officiant, my bridal party, and all the toastmasters were people we met at SSE. I even met my husband there!”

Petra remembers her time in Stockholm with joy. For her, it was the start of a new life.

“Any pain was overshadowed by the freedom and excitement associated with student life, new friends, and new horizons.’’

Living in Stockholm also meant that Petra was geographically closer to her mother’s brother, Eric, and his wife, Elsy.

“They became ‘extra’ parents for me. I’m very thankful to have had so many people care for me.”

Petra was deeply involved in SSE’s student association, serving as a member of its board while consistently delivering at the top of her class. She is especially grateful to Professors Erik Berglöf and Magnus Henrekson.

“Erik really encouraged my interests in research. He ran a program, which focused on economics of communities in transition and was helpful in setting up research internships for me at academic institutions in Russia and China.”

When Petra decided to pursue a doctorate, Erik wrote her a letter of recommendation and helped in securing a spot in the PhD program at Columbia University.

“Once I moved to New York, Magnus was a constant source of support. His gift is keeping track of all the SSE graduates who pursue doctorates abroad and maintaining their connections to Sweden. He ensured we each had an office at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics when we returned. That kind of setup is quite simple yet makes a huge difference and creates a lot of value.”

Petra says her years at Columbia were difficult, mostly because of her frequent travels back and forth to Sweden to see her father, who battled a disease for more than a decade.

“People can live with Alzheimer’s for a long time; it slowly robs them of memories and any understanding of the world. Standing on the sidelines when this happens to someone you love makes you feel powerless. Seeing my smart, funny, and kind dad turn into someone who didn’t know the difference between Tuesday and Wednesday was heartbreaking. What was even more overwhelming was seeing his frustration and pain as a result.”

Petra balanced this long-distance caregiving with her challenging academic demands and completed her doctorate in 2013. She was then chosen as one of the seven most promising economics graduates in the world, accepting a post-doctoral position at Stanford, and then moving to Stanford’s Economics Department a year later, where she is currently an assistant professor. Petra is also an affiliated researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the Research Institute of Industrial Economics, and the Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.

“When deciding to do a PhD I thought I would become a development economist, studying health among poor communities in developing countries. But when I started researching Sweden and other rich countries, I realized you don’t have to look far to find big gaps between the rich and the poor.”

“I grew up thinking there is health equity in Sweden – everyone has the same access to healthcare; everyone gets the medicine they need; everyone has an equal shot at living a long healthy life. But when we look at the data, there are large health disparities across the socio-economic spectrum. Rich people are usually healthier and live longer, and these substantial differences are already apparent at birth; babies born to poorer parents are more likely to have health problems themselves.”

One cannot ignore the tight link between Petra’s painful past and the path she has chosen today.

“My perspective has propelled me to look at the role families play. Specifically, my research explores the many connections between a family’s situation and the health and wellbeing of its members.”

Despite the preponderant emphasis upon the individual in society, family members are so vitally important: for better or for worse.

“Family members support and help each other by sharing information and assisting with hard times. I see this in my own experience; family has been crucial for all the good things in my life’s trajectory. But family members can also inflict a lot of damage; in fact, the most common place for a person to experience violence is in the home.”

Petra explains how all these interdependencies between family members mean that, when something happens to one family member, it will likely affect the health and wellbeing of the others.

“My research traces these influences within the family.”

In one study, Petra explores how the death of a family member during pregnancy affects the unborn child, showing that babies who are exposed to such family trauma in the womb are more likely to suffer from mental health issues as a child and as an adult.

“I think if you were to ask people what defines your life and what events were important in shaping the person you are, very few would say what happened in their mother’s womb. But a lot of research has shown that the prenatal period has crucial effects on wellbeing both in childhood and adulthood. Many of the things that adversely affect pregnant women – stress, pollution, economic shocks – are more prevalent among socio-economically disadvantaged groups. This perpetuates inequality in society because poor children are already at a disadvantage, even before they’re born.”

Petra hopes to make progress on certain social problems by using Big Data and her empirical methods to help society understand them: particularly, health inequality.

“Why is life expectancy 15 years shorter at the lowest end compared to the upper end of the income distribution? That gap is substantial: 15 years that could be shared with your grandchildren or 15 years enjoying one’s retirement.”

Petra’s work is both accessible and applicable, and the world is taking notice. President Barack Obama cited her research on the impact of stress during the prenatal period in his 2016 Economic Report. Her subsequent studies have been cited in numerous international publications, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. Petra is proud to work with data that pertains to her homeland.

“I have many research assistants and collaborators in Sweden that enable me to keep working with Swedish data. Plus, I am very attached to Sweden. The rest of the world is also very interested in research on Sweden. I hope that by working on social problems at home, I can contribute to making the world a better place.”

Petra says we must think critically about how to create policies that support families in need.

“One perspective that shines through in a lot of my research, which also resonates with me on a personal level, is that it is important to think about how public policy can help families navigate trauma and hardship.”

When Petra speaks of her own family tragedy, she is both passionate and compassionate.

“Mental illness is no one’s fault and absolutely not the fault of the person who is ill; any family can have a child with a mental disability. What matters crucially is the help that is available to these children and their families. We will of course never know, but my family’s history might have been different if my childhood had happened 20 years later. The detection, understanding, and awareness of mental illness has rapidly increased, and the associated stigma has fallen. Schools today help parents identify mental health issues in their children and assist them with the appropriate care. My family ended up managing an increasingly untenable situation completely on our own. While we cannot rewrite history, there is a lot we can do today to ensure that children with mental illness, as well as their families, get all the help they need.”

Petra is so positive that one wonders how one can possibly endure such a traumatic childhood, learn to live with the magnitude of such loss, and then go on to turn sorrow into success. Petra is rather pragmatic in her response.

“I think I won the genetic lottery; I’ve got my mom’s sense of language and my dad’s strength in math. Then I won the geographic lottery; I was born in Sweden, where one doesn’t need a lot of money to get a great education. Plus, I had some very precious people care for me at critical times in my life.”

And if someone didn’t believe in luck, what would Petra say?

“I think we tend to look at a person’s résumé and see all the things that worked out. But there must be a lot of failure too. Every article I have had published has been rejected once, twice, or even more times. There are grants I received and those that I didn’t. I think we forget that we compile the successes, but we hide the failures.”

Sometimes it’s precisely because of those failures that we do, in fact, succeed.

“We must never underestimate the vital role family and friends play. For me, it’s been a winding road. I never imagined I would be where I am today: doing research on questions that matter to me, teaching at Stanford, and supervising doctoral students. I try to make a difference every day and use my experience to make economics a little more human.”

Petra says she will always be grateful to the more-than-mighty family members outside the nuclear unit that stepped up and took care of her.

“If my life is indeed a success story, then the success really is theirs - not mine. It is a narrative about love and help: within the family and outside of it. This is certainly not about one person’s strength and excellence.”

Despite her life in Silicon Valley, her career at one of the world’s best universities, and her array of professional successes, Petra says the best part of it all is being a mom.

“I miss my mother and I don’t blame anyone, but the illness, for the life that it cost her. And I miss my father, who also was lost to mental illness too early in life. I think of them often and find myself emulating them by doing the very same things with my own children that they did with me. My children will always be the most important people in this world to me. I love that they love waking up each morning and coming home every day. Today my home is my very favorite place in the world to be.”

“And I’m not hoping for much more than just getting to keep that.”

Text: Karyn McGettigan