Self employment among Italian female graduates

Purpose: To investigate the gender impact of tertiary education on the probability of entering and remaining in self employment. Design/methodology/approach: We exploit a data set on labour market flows produced by the Italian National Statistical Office by interviewing about 62,000 graduate and non graduate individuals in transition between five labour market states: Dependent workers; Self-Employed workers; Unemployed persons; Non active persons. From these data we constructed an average ten-year transition matrix (1993-2003) and investigated the flows between labour market conditions by applying Markovian analysis. Findings: Our data show that education significantly increases the probability of entering self employment for both male and female graduates, but it also significantly increases the transition from self employment to dependent employment for female graduates, thereby increasing the percentage of female graduates in paid employment and reducing the percentage of women in entrepreneurial activities. We argue that the disappointment provoked by the gender wage gap in paid employment may induce some female graduates with low entrepreneurial ability to set up on their own, but once in self employment they have lower survival rates than both men in self employment and women in paid employment. Thus, what we observe overall, is that education widens the gender gap between self employed workers and employees for individuals persisting in the same working condition. Originality/value: Our data enable us to shift the focus of the relationship between education and entrepreneurship from the probability of being self employed to the probability of entering and surviving in this condition.

Talent allocation in the school-to-job transition

This paper raises the problem of the optimal allocation of talent in a gendered perspective. It analyses the transition from education to labor market in Italy, and the way in which gender differences emerge early in the labor market career. Our data establish higher grades for females in both male and female type of courses on the one hand, and lower employment rate, lower entry wages, and under-representation in apical positions for women three years after graduation on the other. We explain female educational over-performance by means of signaling theory and under-utilization of female manpower by means of tournaments theory

Higher education in non-standard wage contracts

By applying Markovian analysis to Italian labor market transition matrices we verify whether higher education increases the likelihood of young workers moving from non-standard to standard wage contracts. As we find evidence for the so-called stepping stone hypothesis, we expect graduates to be more likely to pass from non-standard to standard wage contracts than non-graduates, because the signaling effect of education is enhanced by the stepping stone effect of non-standard wage contracts. Nevertheless, we find that non-standard wage contracts of graduates are more likely to be terminated as bad job/worker matches

Intraspecific phenotypic variability of plant functional traits in contrasting mountain grasslands habitats

Empirical studies that link plants intraspecific variation to environmental conditions are almost lacking, despite their relevance in understanding mechanisms of plant adaptation, in predicting the outcome of environmental change and in conservation. Here, we investigate intraspecific trait variation of four grassland species along with abiotic environmental variation at high spatial resolution (n = 30 samples per species trait and environmental factor per site) in two contrasting grassland habitats in Central Apennines (Italy). We test for phenotypic adaptation between habitats, intraspecific trait-environment relationships within habitats, and the extent of trait and environmental variation. We considered whole plant, clonal, leaf, and seed traits. Differences between habitats were tested using ANOVA and ANCOVA. Trait-environment relationships were assessed using multiple regression models and hierarchical variance partitioning. The extent of variation was calculated using the coefficient of variation. Significant intraspecific differences in trait attributes between the contrasting habitats indicate phenotypic adaptation to in situ environmental conditions. Within habitats, light, soil temperature, and the availability of nitrate, ammonium, magnesium and potassium were the most important factors driving intraspecific trait-environment relationships. Leaf traits and height growth show lower variability than environment being probably more regulated by plants than clonal traits which show much higher variability. We show the adaptive significance of key plant traits leading to intraspecific adaptation of strategies providing insights for conservation of extant grassland communities. We argue that protecting habitats with considerable medium- and small-scale environmental heterogeneity is important to maintain large intraspecific variability within local populations that finally can buffer against uncertainty of future climate and land use scenarios

The impact of inflation on heterogeneous groups of households: an application to Italy

This paper explores the determinants of the heterogeneity in the expenditure behaviours of the Italian households, using the Households Expenditure Survey provided by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) for the year 2005. We assume that differences among consumers are associated with differences in their economic and socio-demographic characteristics (such as gender, employment status and age of the householder, number of household components, presence of under 18 years old components), and we look for those characteristics that better differentiate groups of households according to their purchasing patterns. We apply a nonparametric discriminant analysis based on the various expenditure budget components, and detect the most discrìminating partitions of families. The technique allows us also to identify the specific goods of consumption that significantly differ across the groups identified by the best partitions. We then study the different effects of the price dynamics on subgroups of households, and propose consumer price indices specific for the optimal households groups

Measuring income polarization using Bonferroni and De Vergottini inequality indices: evidences from European countries

The aim of this paper is to measure to which extent income distribution is polarized across European countries by means of polarization measures based on the Bonferroni and De Vergottini indices of inequality. Different from traditional measures of polarization, the indices proposed in this paper are sensitive to progressive transfers, attaching more importance to some part of the income distribution. These indices enriches the analysis and contribute to disentangle the different faces of income polarization. In the empirical application we compare European countries over the period 2010-2019 using EU-SILC data. Results reveal significant changes in polarization over the last decades for most countries

The glycopeptide CSF114(Glc) detects serum antibodies in multiple sclerosis.

Synthetic glycopeptides have the potential to detect antibodies in multiple sclerosis (MS). In the present study, we analyzed the antibodies (IgM class, IgG class and IgG subclasses) to the synthetic glycopeptide CSF114(Glc) in the serum of 186 MS patients, 166 blood donors (BDs), 25 patients affected by meningitis/encephalitis, 41 affected by systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and 49 affected by rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The IgM antibody level to CSF114(Glc) was significantly increased in MS patients versus BDs (p<0.001) or versus other autoimmune diseases (SLE or RA, p<0.001). The IgG response was restricted to the subclass IgG2. IgM antibodies to CSF114(Glc) were found in 30% of relapsing/remitting MS patients and, at lower levels, in subjects affected by meningitis/encephalitis. The study of antibodies to CSF114(Glc) is a new, potential immunological marker of MS

Context-dependent assembly rules and the role of dominating grasses in semi-natural abandoned sub-Mediterranean grasslands

We investigated fine-scale patterns of trait-based community assembly in calcareous grasslands of the Central Apennines, Italy. We used the habitat template of environmentally contrasting north-facing and south-facing slopes of a mountain valley to understand mechanisms that contribute to species coexistence (i.e. the persistence of diversity) after cessation of previous land use practices. Firstly, we tested late successional dominating grasses (Sesleria nitida, Brachypodium rupestre and Bromopsis erectus) for their ability to serve as biotic filtering effects on the diversity of subordinate species in plant communities. Secondly, we analyzed fine-scale trait-based (i.e. species-level traits related to competition, regeneration, establishment, dispersal, and flowering) community assembly of subordinate species in absence of dominant grass. We found that assembly rules for traits related to the same life-history process were mostly consistent within habitats. Further we established that within habitats the traits related to different lifehistory processes can show different assembly rules. For example, while generative regeneration traits (seed mass) may show convergence pattern, divergence was inferred for the vegetative (clonal) regeneration traits. Depending on traits, the assembly rules can be similar or contrasting in different habitats. We conclude that our finding of non-random assembly in the majority of investigated traits emphasizes the importance of hierarchical exclusion of strong biotic filters when searching for trait-based assembly rules in abandoned grasslands. Thus, for nature conservation purposes, disturbance appears to be the process that is most important in driving the survival of subordinate species by the exclusion of biotic filters. Subsequently, a multitude of trait-based mechanisms allow for coexistence of the subordinate species. These mechanisms depend on habitats and traits and thus may vary from community to community, indicating that heterogeneous landscapes might support multiple processes of coexistence