Well-Being and psychological consequences of temporary contracts : the case of younger Italian employees

Working conditions in Western countries have changed dramatically in the last twenty years, witnessing the emergence of new forms of employment contracts. The number of "standard" fulltime permanent jobs has decreased, while non-standard work arrangements such as temporary, contingent or part-time contracts have become much more common. This paper analyses the impact of temporary contracts and job insecurity on well-being among younger Italian employees. We use the "Health Conditions and Use of the Health Service Survey" carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics in conjunction with the Bank of Italy's Survey on Households Income and Wealth (SHIW). We consider four dimensions of individual well-being: physical health, mental health, self-assessed health and happiness. To account for individual heterogeneity we match each temporary worker with a permanent worker using propensity score matching. Well-being of matched individuals is compared to estimates of the average effect of working with a temporary as opposed to a permanent contract. Our analysis reveals a negative relationship between psychological well-being, happiness and having a temporary job and is particularly marked for male

Well-being and psychological consequences of temporary contracts: the case of younger Italian employees

Working conditions in Western countries have changed dramatically in the last twenty years, witnessing the emergence of new forms of employment contracts. The number of "standard" fulltime permanent jobs has decreased, while non-standard work arrangements such as temporary, contingent or part-time contracts have become much more common. This paper analyses the impact of temporary contracts and job insecurity on well-being among younger Italian employees. We use the "Health Conditions and Use of the Health Service Survey" carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics in conjunction with the Bank of Italy's Survey on Households Income and Wealth (SHIW). We consider four dimensions of individual well-being: physical health, mental health, self-assessed health and happiness. To account for individual heterogeneity we match each temporary worker with a permanent worker using propensity score matching. Well-being of matched individuals is compared to estimates of the average effect of working with a temporary as opposed to a permanent contract. Our analysis reveals a negative relationship between psychological well-being, happiness and having a temporary job and is particularly marked for males

Acute health shocks and labour market outcomes

We investigate the labour supply response to acute health shocks experienced in the post-crash labour market by individuals of working age, using data from Understanding Society. Identification exploits uncertainty in the timing of an acute health shock, defined by the incidence of cancer, stroke, or heart attack. Results, obtained through a combination of coarsened exact and propensity score matching, show acute health shocks significantly reduce participation, with younger workers displaying stronger labour market attachment. The impact on older, more educated, women suggests an important role for preferences, financial constraints, and intra-household division of labour determining labour supply decisions

Market structure and technology: evidence from the Italian National Health Service

Sutton (1991, Sunk costs and market structure. Cambridge: MIT Press; 1998, Technology and market structure. Cambridge: MIT Press) theorised that industries evolve into distinct market configurations in terms of concentration, depending upon product homogeneity and whether R&D or advertising are relevant relative to set-up costs. This paper tests the existence of such a relationship between technological profiles and market structure empirically, using the health care services provided by the Italian National Health Service as the specific economic framework. Our results support the empirical predictions made by Sutton. In particular, inmarkets where the technological intensity is low the lower bound to concentration converges monotonically to zero when the market size increases, for any level of product homogeneity. Conversely, in markets where the technological intensity is high the lower bound of concentration converges to some positive (non-zero) value when market size increases, while the lower bound increases (from zero) when the level of product homogeneity increases

The geography of hospital admission in a National Health Service with patient choice: evidence from Italy.

It is evaluated that, each year, 35% out of the 10 million hospital admissions in Italy take place outside the LHAs of residence. In our paper we try to give an explanation of this phenomenon making reference to the social gravity model of spatial interaction. We estimate gravity equations using a Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood method, as proposed by Santos-Silva and Tenreyro (2006). Our results suggest that the gravity model is a good framework for explaining the patient mobility phenomenon for most of the examined diagnostic groups. Our evidence suggests that the ability to contain the imports of hospital services increases with the size of the pool of enrolees. Moreover we find that the ability to export hospital services, as proxied by the ratio of export-to-internal demand, is U-shaped. Therefore our evidence suggests that there are scale effect played by the size of the pool of enrolees.patients’ mobility, hospital care, gravity model, Italian National Health Service

Market structure and technology: evidence from the Italian National Health Service

Sutton (1991, 1998) theorised that industries evolve into distinct market configurations in terms of concentration, depending upon product homogeneity and whether R&D or advertising are relevant relative to set-up costs. This paper tests the existence of such a relationship between technological profiles and market structure empirically, using the health care services provided by the Italian National Health Service as the specific economic framework. Our results support the empirical predictions made by Sutton. In particular, in markets where the technological intensity is low the lower bound to concentration converges monotonically to zero when the market size increases, for any level of product homogeneity. Conversely, in markets where the technological intensity is high the lower bound of concentration converges to some positive (non-zero) value when market size increases, while the lower bound increases (from zero) when the level of product homogeneity increases

The geography of hospital admission in a National Health Service with patient choice: Evidence from Italy

Every year 35% of the 10 million hospital admissions in Italy occurs outside the patients' Local Health Authority of residence. In this paper we look for explanation for this phenomenon and estimate gravity equations for "trade" in hospital care using a Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood method. Our results suggest that the gravity model is a good framework for explaining patient mobility in most of the examined diagnostic groups. We find that the ability to restrain the imports of hospital services increases with the size of the pool of enrollees. Moreover, the ability to export hospital services, as proxied by the ratio of export-to-internal demand, is U-shaped. Therefore our evidence suggests that there are scale effects played by the size of the pool of enrollees.patients mobility, hospital care, gravity model, Italian National Health Service