29 research outputs found
The impact of precarious employment on mental health: The case of Italy
Although there has been a sizeable empirical literature measuring the effect of job precariousness on the
mental health of workers the debate is still open, and understanding the true nature of such relationship
has important policy implications. In this paper, we investigate the impact of precarious employment on mental health using a unique, very large data set that matches information on job contracts for over 2.7 million employees in Italy followed over the years 2007e2011, with their psychotropic medication prescription. We examine the causal effects of temporary contracts, their duration and the number of contract changes during the year on the probability of having one or more prescriptions for medication to treat mental health problems. To this end, we estimate a dynamic Probit model, and deal with the potential endogeneity of regressors by
adopting an instrumental variables approach. As instruments, we use firm-level probabilities of being a
temporary worker as well as other firm-level variables that do not depend on the mental illness status of
the workers. Our results show that the probability of psychotropic medication prescription is higher for workers
under temporary job contracts. More days of work under temporary contract as well as frequent changes
in temporary contract significantly increase the probability of developing mental health problems that
need to be medically treated. We also find that moving from permanent to temporary employment
increases mental illness; symmetrically, although with a smaller effect in absolute value, moving from
temporary to permanent employment tends to reduce it. Policy interventions aimed at increasing the
flexibility of the labour market through an increase of temporary contracts should also take into account
the social and economic cost of these reforms, in terms of psychological wellbeing of employees
Satellite university campuses and economic development in peripheral regions
Satellite university campuses – whereby established universities decentralise part of their activities, often to areas previously lacking a university – contribute to the diversification of university systems. While satellite campuses, due to their small scale and limited resources, might perform some activities less efficiently than their larger parent universities, we argue that they are uniquely placed to serve the needs of their localities. Based on the case of a satellite campus in North-West Italy, we show that: (i) the campus’ main contribution lies in widening access to higher education to residents who would not attend university in the absence of local provision; (ii) the campus contributes to local development also through research and business and community engagement, and by stimulating local demand for knowledge-intensive services; (iii) research and engagement are more effective for local development where local firms possess relevant absorptive capacity and where there is a favourable institutional framework
Attorno al lavoro nero in Veneto. Una ricognizione
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7 , Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal