La poverta': una rassegna sul confronto tra due approcci. Capability vs. Unidimensionalita'

The aim of this paper is to reviews two approaches to the definition and measurement of poverty: the monetary and the capability approach. The paper deal with some methodological issues related to one-dimensional and multidimensional analysis of poverty and try to to analysing them following the same scheme and answering the same questions for both approach. It points out the theoretical underpinnings of the various measures, and problems of operazionalising them and above all it tries to make an arrangement of the literature. We will start by discussing the origins of monetary approach following some common problem that arises when we try to survey all the approach to poverty measurement then we try to classify the most indices of poverty measurement: At the same time among the multidimensional approach the paper will review the Amartya Sen one’s. Despite the capabality approach is widely recognised as one of the more satisfying and complete multidimensional approach there are few empirical applictions. After a brief description of the capability approach, the paper try to classify all the applications made in this field. Some questions arises for further works: all the paper on capability approach focus the attention on functioning rather than capability, and they are implementing above all for (paesi in via di sviluppo). It's seems interesting try to assess some capabilities in industrialized country using ECHP data.Approccio monetario, Approccio di Sen, Basic-Capability, Definizione di Povertà, Funzionamenti, Indici di povertà, Soglie di povertà, Unità d’analisi, Unidimensionalità, Multidimensionalità

Gender Differences in Money Transfers within the Family. Evidence from Italy

This paper examines the changes of women’s contribution within the family in Italy over time. It uses two sources of data, namely ECHP and IT-Silc. The final goal is to detect whether women become more supportive in the household or not because of a number of factors occurred in the sample period. The contribution of each members within the family is defined as the difference between the personal and the per-capita income. We firstly perform separate estimates by gender and by sub-groups, namely receivers (if their contribution is negative) and givers (if their contribution is positive). Finally, we run a threefold Oaxaca decomposition. The results confirm that the differences between men and women are persistent and mainly due to unexplained factors.Oaxaca decomposition, monetary transfers, gender differences.

Do Flexible Employment Contracts Change Household Income Differences in Italy?

This paper examines whether the growing use of non-permanent contracts may have inuenced the intra-family income differences in Italy over time. After the 1996, a number of reforms were imple- mented to reduce the levels of employment protection. Thus we aim at providing evidence on the determinants of potential changes to per- sonal level of income before and after the introduction of such rules. In particular, we calculate the contribution of each individual within the family using two Italian longitudinal data (namely ECHP and IT- Silc). We perform estimations for men and women, separately. Our results confirm that the amount of contribution changes over the span considered. Fathers are generally more likely to support other family members. Sons are instead money receivers, and the magnitude of the coefficient is especially large when labour market fexibility has been already introduced. Individuals with part time temporary contracts face less favourable financial conditions. Finally, those who are out of the labour market (i.e. retired, unemployed, inactive) contribute negatively within the family.Temporary jobs, income differences, employment contracts, family, labour institutional changes, fexibility

Do Flexible Employment Contracts Change Household Income Differences in Italy?

This paper examines whether the growing use of non-permanent contracts may have in uenced the intra-family income differences in Italy over time. After the 1996, a number of reforms were implemented to reduce the levels of employment protection. Thus we aim at providing evidence on the determinants of potential changes to personal level of income before and after the introduction of such rules. In particular, we calculate the contribution of each individual within the family using two Italian longitudinal data (namely ECHP and IT-Silc). We perform estimations for men and women, separately. Our results conrm that the amount of contribution changes over the span considered. Fathers are generally more likely to support other family members. Sons are instead money receivers, and the magnitude of the coefficient is especially large when labour market exibility has been already introduced. Individuals with part time temporary contracts face less favourable financial conditions. Finally, those who are out of the labour market (i.e. retired, unemployed, inactive) contribute negatively within the family

How did the Great Recession affect Gender disparity in Europe? An analysis by a Multidimensional Deprivation approach

This paper analyses how the Great Recession affected the gender disparity in material and social deprivation in Europe. We propose multidimensional non-monetary indexes of absolute and relative (i.e. using peer comparisons) deprivations estimated on data from the European Quality of Life Survey for the waves 2007 and 2011. We find that the Great Recession decreased gender disparity over all the dimensions of deprivations. By applying a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, we estimate that this decline of gender gap has depended on a reduction of the difference in characteristics between genders that has more than offset an increase of gender discrimination

Estimating capability as a latent variable: a latent variable a multiple causes approach - the example of health

Following Sen’s approach to poverty, the ‘real’ poor are those who did not have the choice not to be poor. In other words, poor is an individual who did not have the capability (i.e. the possibility, the ability) to have a suitable income to survive on, a good level of health, a suitable habitat, a good level of education and so on and so forth. The capability approach was introduced for developing countries, thus it has to be readapted for the industrialized ones. In these countries it is necessary to assess the ‘real’ poverty in Sen’s way of thinking. This is important for the implications of political economy that it involves. Among the several dimensions of poverty, we concentrate on the analysis of health because the capability of health is one of the most important constituent of our well-being. We can proceed with an econometric analysis to assess the link between the capability of being healthy and a set of exogenous variables, using the innovative statistics technique of MIMIC (Multiple Indicators and Multiple Choice) model for latent variables. We used the Italian dataset (wave 7, 2001) of the European Community Household Panel. The main results show that deprivation, in each dimensions considered, influences negatively the capability of health, even if healthy pepole are the most in the sample, the percentage of them decrease when we consider the state of deprivation. Mimic model confirms this explorative analysis, showing a correlation between all the exogenous variables considered and the capability of health

Youth poverty after leaving parental home: does parental income matter?

Researchers have now started to look at youth poverty as distinct from child poverty. However none has focused on the intergenerational transmission of youth poverty in European countries. Using four countries for which there are data from the European Community Household Panel, this paper analyses the link between the poverty status of youth after they have left home and the economic status in the family of origin. We adopt a wider age range than in most studies on youth poverty, i.e. between 18 years old and 34. The sample is constitute by youth that have left home as part of a couple. The evidence shows that in Southern European countries there is a negative association between parental income and leaving home as part of a couple: the poorer the family of origin, the less likely is youth to leave home as a couple, so we use a sample selection model (Heckman Probit) to model the probability to be poor after leaving home, where the selection equation is the probability to leave home to live with a partner. We estimate the model separately for each country and also pooling the countries all together using some interactions. The main results show that there is no sample selection bias for any of the countries. The outcome is not different from the one obtained by fitting the Probit and selection models separately. There is a strong effect of the economic status of the family of origin on the probability to be poor in after they have left home, except for Greece. There are not great differences between Italy, Spain and Portugal, even if the intergenerational transmission of poverty seems to be stronger in Spain