Stability and change in family time transfers and workload inequality in Italian couples

This paper analyses changes from 2003 to 2014 in the magnitude and directions of time (i.e., non-market) family transfers and in the gender distribution of total work among Italian couples. The study draws on microdata from the 2003, 2009, and 2014 Italian Time Use Surveys. First, we follow the National Transfer Accounts methodology to estimate gender-specific age profiles of production and consumption of unpaid domestic work and of the related time transfers within families. Then, we focus on couples and build an indicator of workload inequality. Finally, we perform a multivariate statistical analysis to describe the characteristics of the partners associated with gender inequality in the division of work disfavouring women. Female non-market work considerably decreased during the 2003-2014 period. However, women continue to be net donors of time transfers within the family and to perform the bulk of the work within the couple. Households where both partners do not have a market job or where only the woman works in the market show the highest levels of inequality, with women contributing to about 70% of the couples’ total working time

L’ora di punta della vita. La conciliazione lavoro-famiglia vista attraverso i dati sull’uso del tempo

I dati dell’Indagine Uso del Tempo rappresentano una preziosa fonte di informazione ai fini della formulazione di politiche volte a facilitare la conciliazione dei tempi di vita, spesso in conflitto, derivanti dai diversi ruoli sociali ricoperti dagli individui. L’indicatore delle rush hours of life (RHOL), l’ora di punta della vita, è stato sviluppato per individuare i periodi della vita in cui il tempo dedicato complessivamente al lavoro eccede il tempo libero e per misurarne la durata e l’intensità

The impact of increasing education levels on rising life expectancy: a decomposition analysis for Italy, Denmark, and the USA

Abstract Significant reductions in mortality are reflected in strong increases in life expectancy particularly in industrialized countries. Previous analyses relate these improvements primarily to medical innovations and advances in health-related behaviors. Mostly ignored, however, is the question to what extent the gains in life expectancy are related to structural changes in the populations due to increasing education levels. We decompose changes of the total populations' life expectancy at age 30 in Italy, Denmark, and the USA, over the 20-year period between 1990 and 2010 into the effects of education-specific mortality changes ("M effect") and changes in the populations' educational structure ("P effect"). We use the "replacement decomposition technique" to further subdivide the M effect into the contributions by the individual education groups. While most of the increases in life expectancy are due to the effect of changing mortality, a large proportion of improvements in longevity can indeed be attributed to the changing structure of the population by level of education in all three countries. The estimated contribution of the P effect ranges from around 15% for men in the USA to approximately 40% for women in Denmark. This study demonstrates strong associations between education and overall population health, suggesting that education policies can also be seen as indirect health policies

Work and care in the Covid-19 crisis: isn’t it time for fathers?

Can the pandemic play a key role in giving fathers more space inside our homes? An online survey conducted on a sample of more than 1000 people try to answer this question

Active Ageing: The Need to Address Sub-National Diversity. An Evidence-Based Approach for Italy

Artículo 13319[Abstract] While active ageing has emerged as a main strategy to address the challenges of population ageing in Europe, recent research has stressed the need to increase knowledge on within-country differences to promote active ageing through appropriate policy responses. This article draws on the Active Ageing Index (AAI) to capture recent trends in active ageing in Italy with a focus on sub-national diversity. To this end, we compute AAI breakdowns by region separately for men and women for four different years: 2007, 2009, 2012 and 2018. Then, we use linear regression to describe the geographical and sex-specific patterns of change in the AAI over the considered period. The results demonstrate the diversity of regional outcomes and trends in the active ageing of Italian men and women, indicating that the widening geographic gap deserves further consideration by national and regional authorities in designing and implementing active ageing policies. By showing the persistence of disparities in the value of the indicator to the disadvantage of women, results also suggest the need to further integrate both the gender dimension and the life-cycle perspective into active ageing strategies. This article provides an example of how the AAI can be used as a practical tool by policy makers to monitor active ageing trends and outcomes at the sub-national level, and to identify target areas that require further action

Synthesis of Chitosan-Coated Silver Nanoparticle Bioconjugates and Their Antimicrobial Activity against Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria

The increase in multidrug-resistant bacteria represents a true challenge in the pharmaceutical and biomedical fields. For this reason, research on the development of new potential antibacterial strategies is essential. Here, we describe the development of a green system for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) bioconjugated with chitosan. We optimized a Prunus cerasus leaf extract as a source of silver and its conversion to chitosan–silver bioconjugates (CH-AgNPs). The AgNPs and CH-AgNPs were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV–Vis), and zeta potential measurement (Z-potential). The cytotoxic activity of AgNPs and CH-AgNPs was assessed on Vero cells using the 3-[4.5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2.5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) cell proliferation assay. The antibacterial activity of AgNPs and CH-AgNPs synthesized using the green system was determined using the broth microdilution method. We evaluated the antimicrobial activity against standard ATCC and clinically isolated multisensitive (MS) and multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDR) Escherichia coli (E. coli), Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis), Klebsiella pneumonia (K. pneumoniae), and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), using minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assays and the broth dilution method. The results of the antibacterial studies demonstrate that the silver chitosan bioconjugates were able to inhibit the growth of MDR strains more effectively than silver nanoparticles alone, with reduced cellular toxicity. These nanoparticles were stable in solution and had wide-spectrum antibacterial activity. The synthesis of silver and silver chitosan bioconjugates from Prunus cerasus leaf extracts may therefore serve as a simple, ecofriendly, noncytotoxic, economical, reliable, and safe method to produce antimicrobial compounds with low cytotoxicity

Digital inequalities and ICT devices: the ambiguous role of smartphones

This study builds on micro-data from the community European survey on “the ICT usage in household and by individuals” to analyze the digital divide in Italy based on three different dimensions: the technical means (kind of broadband connection and type of device), the use of internet (kind of activities) and the digital skills. We analyze changes occurred over the 2010-2016 period in the use of internet of Italians, using multivariate statistical analysis, we investigate whether there are significant differences among individuals, and particularly among different generations and socio-economic groups, in the use of specific devices such as smartphone or laptop to access internet. Our particular aim is to disentangle the relation between the use of the smartphone and the development of digital skills. Our findings highlight that the solely use of the smartphone is more common among segments of the population characterized by a first level digital divide. Moreover, the results document a negative relation between the exclusive use of the smartphone to access internet and individual digital skills

Il lavoro delle madri dopo la nascita del primo figlio: un'analisi longitudinale

Exiting studies have shown the work-family conflict to be stronger in familialistic welfare regimes compared to other institutional settings. Indeed, Italy stands among the western countries with the lowest levels of both fertility and female employment. This paper draws on micro-data from the Birth Sample Survey (BBS) conducted by Istat to develop a longitudinal analysis of the occupational transitions after the birth of the first child of a sample of mothers who were participants in the 2005 BBS and re-interviewed in 2012. A specific focus is on the changes in the occupational status of women in the two years following the childbirth: a crucial period in which mothers are generally in the process of reflecting and deciding about having possible future children and in which work or financial constraints are more heavily felt. Results from this study indicate that mothers with greater financial resources, e.g. those living in a couple and whose partner has a high occupational status, are generally less likely to be working in the two years after childbearing