The Trend over Time of the Gender Wage Gap in Italy

We analyse gender wage inequalities in Italy in the mid-1990s and in the mid-2000s. In this period important labour market developments occurred: institutional changes have loosened the use of flexible and atypical contracts; the female employment rates and educational levels have substantially increased. We identify the time trends of different components of the gender wage gap by estimating wage distributions in the presence of covariates and sample selection and by counterfactual microsimulations. We find that women swam against the tide: whilst the trend in female qualifications slightly reduced the gender wage gap, the gender relative trends in the wage structure significantly increased it.gender wage gap, counterfactual distributions, decompositions, hazard function, labour market reforms

Gender Wage Gap: A Semi-Parametric Approach With Sample Selection Correction

Sizeable gender differences in employment rates are observed in many countries. Sample selection into the workforce might therefore be a relevant issue when estimating gender wage gaps. This paper proposes a new semi-parametric estimator of densities in the presence of covariates which incorporates sample selection. We describe a simulation algorithm to implement counterfactual comparisons of densities. The proposed methodology is used to investigate the gender wage gap in Italy. It is found that when sample selection is taken into account gender wage gap widens, especially at the bottom of the wage distribution. Explanations are offered for this empirical finding.gender wage gap;hazard function;sample selection;glass ceiling;sticky floor

Gender Wage Gap : A Semi-parametric Approach with Sample Selection Correction

Sizeable gender differences in employment rates are observed in many countries. Sample selection into the workforce might therefore be a relevant issue when estimating gender wage gaps. This paper proposes a new semi-parametric estimator of densities in the presence of covariates which incorporates sample selection. We describe a simulation algorithm to implement counterfactual comparisons of densities. The proposed methodology is used to investigate the gender wage gap in Italy. It is found that when sample selection is taken into account gender wage gap widens, especially at the bottom of the wage distribution. Explanations are offered for this empirical finding.gender wage gap, hazard function, sample selection, glass ceiling, sticky floor

The Trend over Time of the Gender Wage Gap in Italy

We analyse gender wage inequalities in Italy in the mid-1990s and in the mid-2000s. In this period important labour market developments occurred: institutional changes have loosened the use of flexible and atypical contracts; the female employment rates and educational levels have substantially increased. We identify the time trends of different components of the gender wage gap by estimating wage distributions in the presence of covariates and sample selection and by counterfactual microsimulations. We find that women swam against the tide: whilst the trend in female qualifications slightly reduced the gender wage gap, the gender relative trends in the wage structure significantly increased it.gender wage gap, counterfactual distributions, decompositions, hazard function, labour market reforms

The Trend over Time of the GenderWage Gap in Italy

We analyse gender wage inequalities in Italy in the mid-1990s and in the mid-2000s. In this period important labour market developments occurred: institutional changes have loosened the use of flexible and atypical contracts; the female employment rates and educational levels have substantially increased. We identify the time trends of different components of the gender wage gap by estimating wage distributions in the presence of covariates and sample selection and by counterfactual microsimulations. We find that women swam against the tide: whilst the trend in female qualifications slightly reduced the gender wage gap, the gender relative trends in the wage structure significantly increased it.gender wage gap;counterfactual distributions;decompositions;hazard function;labour market reforms

Three essays on Labour Mobility and Unemployment

La tesi si compone di tre saggi su disoccupazione e mobilità del lavoro in Italia, presentando anche un focus sulla regione Lombardia, oltre che da una parte iniziale che inquadra tali tematiche. Il primo capitolo offre infatti una disamina degli sviluppi ed empirici connessi a disoccupazione e mobilità del lavoro. L’obiettivo di questa parte introduttiva è duplice. Da un lato si cerca di fornire un quadro pressochè esaustivo sulle evoluzioni teoriche ed empiriche connesse alle tematiche citate. D’altro lato si introducono le analisi oggetto dei successivi saggi come evoluzione degli sviluppi proposti dalla letteratura, enfatizzandone logiche sottostanti ed originalità. Il primo saggio analizza le determinanti della durata della disoccupazione ed i relativi “competing risks” per la regione Lombardia. La scelta di tale contesto non è casuale. La Lombardia, infatti, rappresenta una delle regioni economicamente più sviluppate ed i risultati ottenuti con tali metodologie di stima possono fornire spunti utili e rappresentativi sia delle regioni europee maggiormente sviluppate, sia di altre rilevanti regioni italiane (Emilia Romagna e Toscana). Il secondo saggio estende l’applicazione di modelli di durata e modelli a rischi competitivi all’intero territorio nazionale. In questo modo è possibile enfatizzare la rilevanza di tali tematiche per il contesto italiano, ed ottenere un quadro esaustivo circa l’evoluzione del fenomeno della durata della disoccupazione. Le tecniche utilizzate per tali analisi, ovviamente, differiscono ripetto a quelle impegate per la regione Lombardia, ed anche questo aspetto consente interessanti considerazioni. Il terzo saggio sposta l’attenzione alla rilevante tematica della mobilità del mercato del lavoro. Tale aspetto è ovviamente connesso al fenomeno della disoccupazione, e consente di approfondirne nonché di delinearne le possibili cause. In tale capitolo vengono proposte due metodologie di analisi. In primo luogo, ed a livello macro, sono fornite le stime aggregate dei flussi fra i principali stati o condizioni (occupazione, disoccupazione, inattività) del mercato del lavoro. Questo primo step consente appunto una prima quantificazione del fenomeno della mobilità. La seconda parte del capitolo si focalizza invece su una stima - a livello micro - delle determinanti delle transizioni fra gli stati del mercato del lavoro. Tale aspetto consente appunto di investigare ed esaminare le cause sottese alla mobilità riscontrata a livello macro.Structured in three essays, this thesis focus on unemployment and labour mobility in Italy and Lombardy (the biggest Italian’s region). The first essay offers a picture of the main theoretical and the empirical issues related to these complex phenomena. The purpose of this section is twofold. On one hand we aim to offer an exhaustive picture of the theoretical and empirical developments of such phenomena. On the other hand, we introduce the empirical investigations of the subsequent essays as evolutions of the ones proposed by literature. We also emphases the original contribution and the logic behind. The second essay investigates the determinants of the unemployment duration and of the related competing risks (CRM hereafter) for Lombardy. The choice to concentrate the initial part of this dissertation on Lombardy is primarily driven by two factors. First, there is interest in applying relevant techniques to a regional context characterized by a certain degree of homogeneity of economic indicators. Further, Lombardy is one of the most important Italian regions (confirmed by many economics indicators), and is quite homogeneous in terms of labour market indicators (only little differences between provinces, with the north-east with the fewest unemployment problems), This allows verifying the effectiveness of these investigations of the determinants of unemployment duration and the related CRM without dealing with the typical dualism between north and south which is a structural feature of the Italian labour market. This is a way to investigate in depth the characteristics of the relevant phenomenon of unemployment for a significant partition of Italy, which is representative of both richest regions in Europe and Italian regions as well (such as Tuscany or Emilia Romagna). The third essay enlarges the attention to Italy by employing techniques of unemployment duration and competing risks to analyse the overall Italian unemployment and its main exit routes. Those are tools to get an exhaustive picture and relevant insights on the evolution of the Italian unemployment duration. The techniques employed for the overall country obviously differ from the ones used for the region of Lombardy, and these differences also offer the scope for interesting considerations. The fourth essay deals with the relevant issue of labour market mobility. This is a theme quite linked to unemployment, since it allows understanding and exploring its causes. We focus on two different kind of analysis. At macro level, we estimate the gross flows between the relevant labour market states of employment, unemployment, and inactivity (three-state representation of the labour market) to quantify the overall labour market mobility. The second part of this section, instead, offers micro econometrics estimates of the determinants of such labour market transitions, to investigate the causes of such mobility

Women's Family Care Responsibilities, Employment and Health: A Tale of Two Countries

Persistently low employment of women in some countries can still be ascribed to a traditional perception of women’s role in society. According to observed data and prevailing social and cultural norms, women have been bearing the primary burdens of housework, childcare, and other family responsibilities. The unequal share of care responsibilities between women and men further worsens the disadvantages of women in balancing public and private life, with an impact on their employment and health outcomes. In this paper we investigate the role of family responsibilities in shaping employment and health outcomes by gender, in Italy and France, during and after the economic downturn. We use data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions for the time windows of 2007-2010 and 2011-2014. Our results support that gender differences in the share of responsibilities roles in the public and private sphere influence the employability and health perception of women

The effect of economic crisis on regional income inequality in Italy

This paper analyzes the determinants of unequal income distribution across macro-regions in Italy, and whether the latest economic crisis has had an effect on income inequality within or between regions. Inequality between individuals and between families appears greatest in the south, and the crisis has exacerbated this phenomenon. Econometric analyses by population groups and by nationality suggest that high educational attainment levels and larger households contribute to increasing the household income, whereas being female and foreign tend to reduce household income. The income distribution of foreign-born individuals tends to be more asymmetric, with heavier tails, compared to that of nationals

Childbirth and poverty in Europe: A dynamic bivariate approach

We use the 2015–2018 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions panel data and a dynamic bivariate probit model to estimate the impact of childbirth on the risk of poverty in 25 European countries. We model both poverty and childbirth mechanisms, identifying genuine state dependence and accounting for feedback effects from past poverty to childbirth. We find that childbirth slightly increases the risk of poverty in Europe, but some heterogeneities emerge at the country level. When disentangling the effects of childbirth conditional on past poverty status, it appears that childbirth determines redistributive effects possibly induced by welfare systems. We find evidence of genuine state dependence and suggests that discouraging factors induced by the experience of poverty itself has increased over time. The risk of poverty is triggered by the presence of dependent members in the household, while education and employment stability are helpful to combat poverty