A gender geography of intentional homicide within and outside of the family: Male and female murders in Europe, the US and Canada (2003–15):

Using the most recent and unpublished international data provided by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, we discuss the geography of male and female homicides in Europe, the US and Canada during the period 2003–15. We observe declining trends in mortality for both male and female homicide in most of these countries. For within-family homicides, geographical differences are much less pronounced compared with those occurring outside the family, especially if the victim is a woman and the perpetrator is the partner or former partner. Only for men is the risk of being the victim of a homicide committed by a family member greater where the risk of being killed by someone outside the family is also higher

Natural Resources, Demand for Skills, and Schooling Choices

This paper studies the consequences of the buildup of a new economic sector—the Norwegian petroleum industry—on investment in human capital. We assess both short-term and long-term effects for a broad set of educational margins, by comparing individuals in regions exposed to the new sector with individuals in unexposed regions. Importantly, we analyze how the effects and the mechanisms change as the sector develops. Our results indicate that an initial increase in the high school dropout rate is short-lived both because dropouts get their degrees later as adults, and because later-born cohorts adapt to the new needs of the industry by enrolling more in vocational secondary education. We also observe a decrease in academic high school and college enrollment except for engineering degrees. Financial incentives to both completing high school and field of study, are the most likely channels driving these effects

Sulla proposta di istituzione dell’Assegno Unico e Universale per i Figli (AUUF)

L'approvazione, imminente, della Legge delega per il varo dell'Assegno unico e universale per i figli (AUUF) rappresenta un importante momento della riforma degli istituti di trasferimento monetario del welfare del nostro paese. Il Gruppo Arel/Feg/Alleanza per l'infanzia intende fornire un proprio contributo nella fase di elaborazione dei Decreti attuativi, proponendosi di ragionare su tale riforma nel presupposto che il testo della Legge delega approvata alla Camera venga approvato in via definitiva al Senato (A.S. n. 1892) senza modificazioni e che i contributi che si vorranno fornire siano rispettosi dei principi contenuti nella Legge delega, pur tenendo conto dei margini di discrezionalità che essa lascia aperti nella produzione dei decreti legislativi

research policy dialogues in italy

Italy is usually characterised by political scientists as a country with a high degree of penetration of party politics over public administration and civil society. Experts are often considered either marginal or controversial figures. Especially when involved in policymaking, experts tend to be linked to specific political parties, and claims of impartiality are met with suspicion. This explains why in Italy it took a rather long time before a true dialogue between academia and policymakers developed, while once a formal dialogue structure was set in place, in the late 1990s, it did not last very long. Since then, the use of expert knowledge by policy makers has been primarily of a symbolic nature, either of a legitimising or of a substantiating kind, or it has not been used at all. For instrumental utilisation to occur, responsible and interested policymakers and public officials must be in place, a condition that seems to have been met in only few specific cases

Italy’s Path to Very Low Fertility: The Adequacy of Economic and Second Demographic Transition Theories: Le cheminement de l’Italie vers les très basses fécondités: Adéquation des théories économique et de seconde transition démographique

The deep drop of the fertility rate in Italy to among the lowest in the world challenges contemporary theories of childbearing and family building. Among high-income countries, Italy was presumed to have characteristics of family values and female labor force participation that would favor higher fertility than its European neighbors to the north. We test competing economic and cultural explanations, drawing on new nationally representative, longitudinal data to examine first union, first birth, and second birth. Our event history analysis finds some support for economic determinants of family formation and fertility, but the clear importance of regional differences and of secularization suggests that such an explanation is at best incomplete and that cultural and ideational factors must be considered