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Old age and inequalities in Egypt. The role of intergenerational relationships and transfers within the family
Full text linkThe paper aims at analysing the condition of the elderly in Egypt, a country where ageing is a rising trend. Our focus is on the role intergenerational ties and transfers within the family have in alleviating poverty situations of aged people. We analyse old people living arrangements in order to underline the spread of vulnerability among them. In a social and economic context where old people are vulnerable to poverty, we intend to investigate the importance of economic and non-economic flows towards the elderly. We use individual data from Egypt Labour Market Survey 1998 and 2006 that inform about demographic characteristics of individuals, households, housing conditions and non-work sources of income
Childlessness and education: The case of Italy and Finland
Full text linkThe aim of this paper is to study the role of education as a micro-level determinant of childlessness in Finland and Italy paying attention to the role of union formation. We start from the hypothesis that when modeling the relation between childlessness and education, selectivity processes have to be considered.
Our hypothesis is that education can affect childlessness, both directly, and indirectly, through its link with the union formation mechanisms; and that decisions on union formation and on parenthood can be considered as jointly determined. Thus, in order to understand how education can influence childlessness, it is important take into account the possible existence of common, unobserved factors that determine both processes simultaneously.
We use Bivariate Probit Models to simultaneously model both union formation and childlessness mechanisms, and to understand which is the role education play in determining such mechanisms.
We focus on Italy and Finland, which are characterized by very different institutional contexts, being at different development stages, but showing outstanding level of childlessness with a prevalence over 20% for the cohorts born in the sixties. The similar prevalence observed for the most recent cohort hides interesting differences in terms of childlessness path by education level: Italy shows a persistent positive educational gradient over birth cohort, while in Finland it has reversed, turning out to be negative among the most recent birth cohorts. In a comparative perspective, we are interested in understanding if the cultural and political-institutional context of countries can determine the way childlessness and education are related.
We use data from the Finnish Late Fertility Survey 2015 and from the 2009 Multipurpose Italian survey, Family and Social Subjects.
Results confirm that a positive education gradient in childlessness exists in Italy, even when taking into account the correlation between the preferences of women with respect to union formation and motherhood processes; while in Finland the negative education gradient reverses when controlling for this correlation as partnership market dynamics strongly influence the educational gradient in childlessness, whose existence is mostly due the difficulty low educated women encounter in finding a partner
Social activities, loneliness and life satisfaction in old age: a time use study.
Full text linkThe concept of actively ageing is strictly related to the notion of dealing with time: finding a new role in society means to replace structured time use routines with new ones, giving old people the chance to establish and discover a renewed meaning of life.
Research has shown that being active is an important determinant of LS. Moreover, not only the type of activity seems to be important, but also its social dimension.
In this study we use Time Use survey for understanding if and to what extent involvement in different activities – measured through time devoted to each activity – is associated with different levels of LS. Moreover, we want to know if performing those activities alone or with other people is significantly associated to LS level, with the hypothesis that impairment in social interactions and isolation are important sources of dissatisfaction in old age, while supportive social relationships and intimacy may increase emotional strength and LS.
We select a subsample of 12,247 individuals, aged more than 60 from the 2015-2016 Italian Time Use Survey. We use OLS regression models for studying the association between self-reported LS (10 point Likert scale) and the time spent in passive, active, and social pursuits.
By starting from the hypothesis that different aspects are likely to be important in the evaluation of self, and, in turn, in determining wellbeing, for men and women, we run separate analyses by gender. Moreover by considering that being active, and, in particular, being active in social activities and spending time not alone may have a more relevant role in determining LS when the older adult is in a condition of social frailty, such as that defined by living alone, we split our analyses by living arrangements (alone vs. with others). We can expect, in fact, that the potential gender differences in the predictors of LS vary for older persons living alone, as they have specific characteristics and needs, and, even if they are not necessarily socially isolated, their condition places them in a potential vulnerable position.
Results show that being active is important for LS in old age. Spending time in social activities resulted to be associated with LS, regardless the sex. At the same time, the proportion of daily activities spent with other people is relevant only for people not living alone
Quality of life in older age: Does the context matter?
Full text linkAs societies age, the well-being of the elderly increasingly becomes a priority and a challenge. Measuring the quality of life of older people and identifying its determinants is a fundamental element, that could help in designing tailored policies for making aged people well-being increase all over Europe.
Most of research on active ageing stresses the importance of individual determinants of wellbeing, and some scholars suggest that macro factors have also a role, for instance the welfare provisions and models, as well as the level of socio-economic inequality, unemployment rate, gender equality policies, GDP. However, in the quoted studies only single macro dimensions are generally considered, while a research linking the multiple macro-dimensions of active aging to the individual level of wellbeing is lacking.
We want to fill this gap, aware that both active ageing (as a macro-level element) and individual well-being are complex concepts, influenced and determined by several aspects, and that research results could be influenced by the type of dimension chosen for the analysis.
Beyond understanding the micro-level elements influencing individual well being, we want to “put individuals into contexts”, and to investigate the role macro- level factors have in explaining individual wellbeing.
The novelty element of our research is that we use composite measures, both at the micro and macro-level.
We focus on a broad definition of quality of life in old age, capturing the multidimensional nature of such a concept by using the CASP-12 indicator drawn from the sixth wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).
We chose as a macro-level composite indicator the Active Ageing Index (AAI), that depict an overall picture synthetizing several aspect considered to be important gauges of active ageing at the national level. We use multilevel models, by taking into account the AAI measure as a level-2 variable, both in its elementary components and as a whole, to in depth investigate which macro-level factors foster/hinder elderlies’ life quality.
Result seems to corroborate the hypothesis that the context matters and cannot be ignored in the analysis. This confirm other results found in the literature on the importance of the macro factors on individual’s wellbeing and support the idea that using macro indicators in multilevel analysis increase the explaining potential of the study
Time allocation and wellbeing in later life: the case of Italy
Full text linkAgeing processes are fundamentally linked to the concept of ‘dealing with time’. In old age time use patterns change radically and how these changes are linked with wellbeing is still mostly unexplored. By using the most recent Italian Time Use Survey (2014-15) we get an insight in the association between time allocation in old people’s daily routines and wellbeing in later life, in Italy. We use Sequence Analysis techniques to identify some “time use profiles” in old ages. Multinomial regressions are then used to understand which factors influence the risk to be in one of the profiles identified. Moreover, we analyse how those profiles are linked with different levels of subjective wellbeing, thus identifying high-risk groups and providing a new perspective on old people needs
A Micro Analysis of the Infant Mortality Decline in an Italian Sharecropping Community from 1900 to 1939
Full text linkIn the first decades of the twentieth century, an evident reduction of the infant mortality rate occurred in Italy. In previous studies, less attention has been devoted to the effects of individual bio-demographic and socioeconomic components on infant mortality. We use micro data from births, deaths and marriages civil registers of Granarolo, an Italian rural municipality close to Bologna, from 1900 to 1939. We are able to reconstruct some typical bio-demographic characteristics and the socio-economic status of parents. In these terms, the analysis includes: parity, age of the mother, previous birth interval and child survival, father’s occupations and literacy, season and year of birth. Cox and Piecewise constant exponential models are used to estimate the effects of the selected predictors. We found that still in the first four decades of the twentieth century rural daily wagers experienced a lower level in infant survivor, whereas the upper class registered significantly higher ones
Fathers' time with children at the crossroads of the gender revolution: A comparative analysis in France, Italy, Sweden and the UK.
Full text linkBACKGROUND
According to recent literature the increasing women's labour market participation is only the first part of the so called gender revolution, while a second part is now unfolding, with an increased participation of men in family life with special attention to childcare.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this paper is to explore fathers' involvement in parenting tasks within different contexts in terms of gender regimes, family policies, and workplace culture. The idea is to evidence individual factors that may enable/challenge the capability of fathers to stay with children and care for them, and to suggest opportune father-friendly policies.
METHODS
Time with children is compared among a sample of fathers in Time Use survey in France (2009-2010), Italy (2008-09), Sweden (2000-2001) and the UK (2000). Three different measures of father involvement are examined: the total time father spend with their children, the time they spend alone with them, and their engagement in childcare activities.
RESULTS
Results show that distinct micro-level factors contribute in determining the three levels of father's commitment analysed. Few cross-countries differences emerge. Fathers' involvement is mainly determined by their work-related features, by their children characteristics, and by their partner's working schedules. Weekday and weekend differences are observed. The quantum of father engagement strongly depends on the countries' institutional context: it is the highest in Sweden and the lowest in Italy.
CONTRIBUTION
This comparative study shows the methodological importance of considering different measures of father involvement to understand how micro-level factors influence the time fathers spend with their children in different institutional context
Fathers' time with children at the crossroads of the gender revolution: a comparative analysis in France, Italy, Sweden and the UK
Full text linkAccording to recent literature the increasing women’s labour market participation is only the first part of the so called gender revolution, while a second part is now unfolding, with an increased participation of men in family life with special attention to childcare.
The aim of this paper is to explore fathers’ involvement in parenting tasks within different contexts in terms of gender regimes, family policies, and workplace culture. The idea is to evidence individual factors that may enable/challenge the capability of fathers to stay with children and care for them, and to suggest opportune father-friendly policies.
Time with children is compared among a sample of fathers in Time Use survey in France (2009-2010), Italy (2008-09), Sweden (2000-2001) and the UK (2000). Three different measures of father involvement are examined: the total time father spend with their children, the time they spend alone with them, and their engagement in childcare activities.
Results show that distinct micro-level factors contribute in determining the three levels of father’s commitment analysed. Few cross-countries differences emerge. Fathers’ involvement is mainly determined by their work-related features, by their children characteristics, and by their partner’s working schedules. Weekday and weekend differences are observed. The quantum of father engagement strongly depends on the countries’ institutional context: it is the highest in Sweden and the lowest in Italy.
Fathers’ time with children at the crossroads of the gender revolution: 3 a comparative analysis in France, Italy, Sweden and the UK Acknowledgement: The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 320116 for the research project FamiliesAndSocieties.
This comparative study shows the methodological importance of considering different measures of father involvement to understand how micro-level factors influence the time fathers spend with their children in different institutional context
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