Child welfare and intra-household inequality in Albania

The present paper aims at contributing to the literature on children welfare evaluation by taking into account for intra-household distribution of resources and, as a consequence, intra-household inequality. This task cannot be accomplished within the standard framework of unitary model of consumption, and equivalence scales helps only partially, since their scope is different. To investigate what happens within the family's black box we refer to collective models, recovering information about the decision of how resources are distributed within the household. We use the estimated sharing rule to draw some conclusions about the role played by intra-household inequality for children welfare in Albania and look at the effects that different public policies can have on child welfare. We find that taking into account for intra-household inequality raises the Gini of children welfare by nearly 10 percentage points and that in-kind transfers are more effective than cash transfers in ameliorating children well-being.Child welfare, intra-household inequality, collective models, sharing rule, Albania.

Life satisfaction and household production in a collective model: Evidence from Italy

The model takes into account the household production and self reported information is interpreted in relation with the sharing rule governing the bargaining process in the family. Considering that the theoretical framework implies a wide concept of full income, which includes the allocation of time between the spouses, we used the self reported information on whole satisfaction in life. We demonstrate that self reported data on satisfaction are useful in recovering the individual share of the household full income and the relevance of the wages in this bargaining process. We find also that non strictly economic individual variables and some household characteristics are important in explaining the Italian sharing rule.Collective model, Within-household income comparisons, Subjective data, Italy.

Evaluating Pro-poor Transfers When Targeting is Weak: The Albanian Ndihma Ekonomike Program Revisited

The Albanian Ndihma Ekonomike is one of the first poverty reduction programs launched in transitional economies. Its record has been judged positively during the recession period of the 1990s and negatively during the more recent growth phase. This paper reconsiders the program using a regression-adjusted matching estimator rst suggested by Heckman et al. (1997, 1998) and exploiting discontinuities in program design and targeting failures. We nd the program to have a weak targeting capacity and a negative and signicant impact on welfare. We also nd that recent changes introduced to the program have not improved its performance. An analysis of the distributional impact of treatment based on stochastic dominance theory suggests that our results are robust.Social assistance, Poverty, Impact Evaluation, Albania

GDP and the Value of Family Caretaking: How Much Does Europe Care?

This study estimates the size and value of unpaid family caretaking activities at a European level. While at a country level several studies are available, a comprehensive evaluation for Europe as a whole was missing so far, mainly due to data limitations. This paper fills this gap using a method that merges the information of an EU household survey (EU-SILC) with a time use survey (HETUS). Monetary values of unpaid family domestic work and unpaid family childcare work are obtained applying both the opportunity cost and the market replacement approaches. For Europe as a whole, the total value of these activities ranges between 20.1 per cent and 36.8 per cent of the EU GDP, depending on the applied methodology. The national values of these activities are discussed and an interpretation of the country differentials in the family caretaking gender gaps is given in terms of differences in culture, economic development and welfare state.unpaid domestic work, family care work, gender inequality, opportunity cost, market replacement approach

Gender inequalities among adults and children in collective households

This paper studies the distribution of resources within Albanian families in 2012 using a collective consumption model with two alternative specifications: the first enables the estimation of intrahousehold distribution of resources among male adults, female adults and children; the second extends the analysis to girls and boys. To improve the identification in the context of extended families we implement a strategy to identify the main decision making couple within the household. In line with previous evidence on gender discrimination in Albania, the results show that the female shares of resources are substantially lower with respect to a fair distribution, and that sons receive a larger share of resources than daughters. We further explore whether the migration experience of the husband of the main couple influences the distribution of resources within the family and find evidence that the time spent abroad by the male migrant increases gender inequality (by increasing the share of men more than that of women) and worsen children's position, both when the family was left behind and when also women and children joined the migrant in the destination country

Do parents drink their children's welfare? A joint analysis of intra-household allocation of time

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether excessive parental alcohol consumption leads to a reduction of child welfare. To this end, we analyse whether alcohol consumption decreases time spent by parents looking after their children and working. Using the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, the study focuses on mono-nuclear families with children under fifteen years of age, for whom we estimate a model of intra-household allocation of time. We find that husbands' alcohol consumption has a negative impact on their weekly hours spent doing child care, while no significant effect is observed for mothers' alcohol consumption. We interpret these findings as evidence of a negative impact of fathers' alcohol consumption on child welfare

Do parents drink their children’s welfare? Intra-household allocation of time between market labour, domestic work and child care in Russia

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether parental alcohol consumption leads to a reduction of child welfare. To this end, we analyse whether alcohol consumption decreases parents' time spent looking after children and working. Using the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, we estimate a model of intra-household allocation of time for mono-nuclear families with children under fifteen years of age. We find that fathers' alcohol consumption has a negative impact on their weekly hours spent doing child care, while no significant effect is observed for mothers' alcohol consumption

Adolescent sexual behaviour and academic performance of Italian students

Abstract This article estimates the effect of sexual activity during adolescence on academic performance of high school students in Italy. We exploit a sample of university students drawn from the two waves (2000 and 2017) of the SELFY survey. The survey collects information on sexual behaviours during adolescence and on the grade obtained at the high school final examination, as well as on a number of family-related variables. Overall, results suggest a negative relationship between sexual activity and the grade obtained in the high school final examination supporting the idea that health and education consequences of sexual activities among adolescents merit public policy efforts. To deal with the potential influence of unobserved characteristics at individual and family level, we also pursue an instrumental variables approach. As instruments, we use three questions as proxy of erotophobia-erotophilia personality trait. This extension of the analysis confirms the results of the baseline models