An Empirical Analysis of the Time Allocation of Italian Couples: Are Italian Men Irresponsive?

This paper analyzes the time allocation of Italian spouses to paid work, childcare and household work. The literature suggests that Italian husbands contribute the least to unpaid household work, relative to other European countries, while Italian women have the lowest market employment rates. We model the three different time uses simultaneously for the two spouses within each household, allowing for corner solutions and correlations in the unobservables across the system of six equations. To estimate the model we use data drawn from the 2002-03 Italian Time Use Survey, combined with earnings information taken from the 2002 Bank of Italy Survey. We conclude that Italian husbands’ time allocation responds to their wife’s attributes: in particular, husbands’ housework time increases with the wage of their wife. On the contrary, the own wage effect is significantly negative for housework of women. Childcare time of fathers increases with own wage and with the presence of small children and this is true both for weekdays and weekends.Time allocation; work behaviour; household economics

Financial Wealth, Consumption Smoothing, and Income Shocks due to Job Loss

One of the reasons for setting up an unemployment insurance scheme is to allow job losers to smooth consumption. However, very little is known to date on the consumption smoothing impact of unemployment benefits. Here, we test for the impact of unemployment benefits on changes in household food expenditure of individuals that have recently experienced a job loss, allowing for different levels of household’s financial wealth. We also study the relationship between unemployment benefits and financial wealth of the unemployed. We use for the empirical analysis a unique dataset rich on information on financial assets and debt of the unemployed. We conclude that there is significant heterogeneity in the consumption responses of job losers to the income shock. For households without financial wealth at the time of job loss, unemployment benefits help smoothing food consumption. The results of estimation also suggest considerable heterogeneity in the relationship between borrowing and the level of benefits. For households running debt before job loss, there is evidence that higher replacement rates lead to postponing of paying off debt.Unemployment, Savings. JEL Classification: J64, E21.

How do spouses allocate time : the effects of wages and income

This paper focuses on the time allocation of spouses and the impact of economic variables. We present a stylized model of the time allocation of spouses to illustrate the expected impact of wages and non-labour income. The empirical model simultaneously specifies three time-use choices-paid work, childcare, and housework-and wage and employment equations for each spouse, allowing for correlation across the errors of the ten equations. We exploit the rich information in the French time-use survey 1998-99 to estimate the model. The predictions of the theoretical model are mostly validated with the main exception of the standard hypothesis that performing housework does not bring utility. Parents’ market time responds positively to changes in own wage. The own-wage elasticity of housework is negative while childcare does not react to changes in own wage. Women’s non-market time is independent of their husband’s wage; but both housework and childcare of fathers react positively to an increase in their wife’s wage. Nonlabour income reduces paid work by parents and increases their non-market time. Higher-educated and older parents spend more time with their children. There are significant and positive correlations across the errors of the spousal equations.time use, work behaviour, household economics

Her Time, His Time, or the Maid's Time: An Analysis of the Demand for Domestic Work

This paper analyzes households' demand for time inputs to domestic services, modeling simultaneously the decision to purchase services in the market and the time spent on weekend and weekday days by each partner on routine household chores. By focusing on cleaning, laundry, and ironing, we reduce the likelihood that preferences matter and increase the overlap with market services. Particular emphasis is placed on estimating the effects of prices, as captured by own and partner wages and the market price for domestic services. We exploit time-diary data for Great Britain and France, relying on cross-country comparisons to generalize our findings. The results indicate that prices strongly influence market purchases, and that maid service is a closer substitute for household time on weekends than weekdays, but is also correlated with 'her' weekday time. More generally, we find that women's wages have a stronger association with the inputs to domestic work than any other price measure.time use, domestic work, gender

Modelling the employment and wage outcomes of spouses: Is she outearning him?

This paper is focused on couple households where the wife is the main earner. The economic literature on this subject is particularly scant. According to our estimates, the wife was the main earner in one of every six couple households in France in 2002, including wife-sole-earner households. The proportion of wives outearning their husbands was 18% for dual-earners. About 24% of American women in dual-earner households earned more than their husband in 2004. Using a model of household labour supply behaviour, we show that households where the wife is the main earner may come about either because the husband has a weaker preference for work than his wife, due possibly to her high wage, or because he is hit by adverse circumstances, such as, for example, a decline in the demand for men with his particular qualifications. Positive assortative mating may also come into play. Our empirical model specifies spouse labour-market participation equations within each household, endogenizing wages and allowing for random effects and correlations in spouses’ unobservables. We conclude that the determinants of wife-sole-earner households are quite distinct from those for dual-earner households where she outearns him. The probability of observing the first seems to be more related to labour market difficulties of the husband, while the latter is not. Dual-earners where she outearns him are more likely to be found among higher educated couples, and especially, among couple where the wife’s education level is high.Marriage, work behaviour, household economics.

Retirement and Home Production: A Regression Discontinuity Approach

Existing studies show that individuals who retire replace some private consumption by home production, but do not consider joint behaviour of couples. Here we analyze the causal effect of retirement of each partner on hours of home production of both partners in a couple. Our identification strategy exploits the earliest age retirement laws in France, enabling a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach. We find that own retirement significantly increases own hours of home production and the effect is larger for men than for women. Moreover, retirement of the female partner significantly reduces male hours of home production but not vice versa.time allocation, house work, couples

Does Income Taxation Affect Partners' Household Chores?

We study the impact of income taxation on both partners' allocation of time to market work and unpaid house work in households with two adults. We estimate a structural household utility model in which the marginal utilities of leisure and house work of both partners are modelled as random coefficients, depending on observed and unobserved characteristics of the household and the two partners. We use a discrete choice model with choice sets of 2,401 points for each couple, distinguishing seven market work intervals and seven house work intervals for each partner. The model is estimated using data for France, which taxes incomes of married couples jointly, like, for instance, Germany and the US. We find that both partners’ market and non-market time allocation decisions are responsive to changes in the tax system or other policy changes that change the financial incentives. Women's time allocation is more responsive to the own and the partner’s wage rate than men's. Tax policy simulations suggest that moving from joint taxation for married couples to separate taxation of each spouse would go a small step in the direction of equalizing market and non-market work of spouses. Selective taxation with smaller tax rates for women than for men would magnify these effects.time use, taxation, labour supply, discrete choice models

Assessing the potential distribution of insect pests: case studies on large pine weevil (Hylobius abietis L) and horse-chestnut leaf miner (Cameraria ohridella) under present and future climate conditions in European forests†

Forest insect pests represent a serious threat to European forests and their negative effects could be exacerbated by climate change. This paper illustrates how species distribution modelling integrated with host tree species distribution data can be used to assess forest vulnerability to this threat. Two case studies are used: large pine weevil (Hylobius abietis L) and horse-chestnut leaf miner (Cameraria ohridella Deschka & Dimic) both at pan-European level. The proposed approach integrates information from different sources. Occurrence data of insect pests were collected from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), climatic variables for present climate and future scenarios were sourced, respectively, from WorldClim and from the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), and distributional data of host tree species were obtained from the European Forest Data Centre (EFDAC), within the Forest Information System for Europe (FISE). The potential habitat of the target pests was calculated using the machine learning algorithm of Maxent model. On the one hand, the results highlight the potential of species distribution modelling as a valuable tool for decision makers. On the other hand, they stress how this approach can be limited by poor pest data availability, emphasizing the need to establish a harmonised open European database of geo-referenced insect pest distribution data. Evaluation de la repartition potentielle des insectes nuisibles: etudes de cas sur le grand charancon du pin (Hylobius abietis L.) et sur la mineuse du marronnier (Cameraria ohridella) dans les conditions climatiques actuelles et futures dans les forets europeennes Les insectes nuisibles des forets representent une menace serieuse pour les forets europeennes et leurs effets negatifs pourraient etre aggraves par le changement climatique. Cet article illustre l'utilisation de la modelisation de la repartition des especes, integree aux donnees de repartition des arbres-hotes, pour evaluer la vulnerabilite des forets a cette menace. Deux etudes de cas sont utilisees, toutes deux au niveau paneuropeen, pour le grand charancon du pin (Hylobius abietis L.) et la mineuse du marronnier (Cameraria ohridella Deschka & Dimic). L'approche proposee utilise des informations de differentes sources. Les donnees sur la presence des insectes nuisibles proviennent du service mondial d'information sur la biodiversite ('Global Biodiversity Information Facility', GBIF), les variables climatiques pour le climat actuel et des scenarios futurs ont ete obtenues, respectivement, a partir de WorldClim et du Programme de recherche sur le changement climatique, l'agriculture et la securite alimentaire (CCAFS), et les donnees sur la repartition des arbres-hotes ont ete obtenues aupres du Centre europeen de donnees sur les forets (EFDAC), qui fait partie du systeme d'information forestiere pour l'Europe ('Forest Information System for Europe', FISE). L'habitat potentiel des ravageurs etudies a ete calcule en utilisant l'algorithme d'apprentissage automatique du modele Maxent. D'une part, les resultats indiquent que la modelisation de la repartition des especes peut devenir un outil precieux pour les decideurs. D'autre part, ils indiquent que cette approche peut etre limitee par le manque de donnees sur les organismes nuisibles, renforcant ainsi la necessite de creer une base de donnees europeenne harmonisee et ouverte pour les donnees geo-referencees sur la repartition des insectes nuisibles. Oцeнкa пoтeнциaльнoгo pacпpocтpaнeния вpeдныx нaceкoмыx нa пpимepe бoльшoгo cocнoвoгo дoлгoнocикa (Hylobius abietis L) и лиcтoвoгo минёpa кoнcкoгo кaштaнa (Cameraria ohridella) пpи cyщecтвyющиx и бyдyщиx климaтичecкиx ycлoвияx в eвpoпeйcкиx лeca

Tackling TB in migrants arriving at Europe’s southern border

Over a quarter of the individuals diagnosed with tuberculosis [TB] in the European Union region are born outside of the area and the proportion has been increasing steadily. Italy is a low TB incidence country with over 50% of TB cases in the foreign-born population primarily due to the high numbers of migrants entering the country via land or sea. As a case study to evaluate the value of screening in newly arrived migrants, the EDETECT-TB project in Italy implemented and evaluated active TB screening in the migrant population at first reception centres to ensure early diagnosis to avoid further spread. Based on a cost-effectiveness analysis from a program provider perspective, a decision tree model allowed the assessment of the value for money of case finding by estimating the cost per case of active TB detected compared with the status quo of no screening. The analysis confirmed that early case detection is a cost-effective intervention in areas with migrants arriving from high TB risk settings. Targeted post-arrival early screening of high TB risk vulnerable new entrants to Italy has a potential role in reducing the spread of TB among migrants