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

INTRAHOUSEHOLD DISTRIBUTION IN MIGRANT-SENDING FAMILIES

This paper studies the distribution of resources within families with migrant member abroad. We derive a complete collective demand system with individual Engel effects for male and female adults and children, and the respective share of resources. The focus is on migrant-sending families in Albania, where gender and inter-generational inequalities are relevant social issues. The results show that the female share of resources is substantially lower with respect to an equal distribution and do not benefit from father's migration. Children have a larger share of resources and benefit from their fathers migration, when women maintain control over family decisions and when the proportion of female children is larger (at the detriment of women)

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