The last GESI Socio-demo seminar of this academic year, held today, was well-participated. It featured an interesting debate where Emmanuele Pavolini presented a work titled “Equalizing or not? Public childcare and women’s labour market participation”.
An important event organized by ANCI is on the horizon: “I COMUNI SICILIANI OLTRE LA CRISI DEMOGRAFICA ED ECONOMICA” conference. Taking place on Saturday, May 18, 2024, at the Palazzo dei Congressi in San Marco D’Alunzio (ME), this gathering is set to be a pivotal moment for Sicily’s trajectory.
This event will provide a platform for experts, local administrators, representatives from other institutions, and citizens to engage in meaningful discussions. Together, we’ll explore strategies for overcoming the challenges faced by Sicilian communities, drawing upon successful practices implemented elsewhere.
Among the speakers, Professor Maurizio Avola from the University of Catania will be participating in the roundtable discussion on “Development Strategies for Overcoming the Crisis”.
Leaflet:
https://www.anci.sicilia.it/wp-content/uploads/programma-2-1.pdf
We are glad to invite you to the next GESI SocioDemo Seminar of 2024, on Tuesday, May 21st at 14:30
Equalizing or not? Public childcare and women’s labour market participation
Speaker
Emmanuele Pavolini (Università di Milano)
Further details
Tuesday, April 21st, 2024, 14:30-16:30
SPS Seminar Room (1st FLOOR, CONSERVATORIO SIDE – via Conservatorio 7, Milan)
or online:
MS TEAMS (link: urly.it/3_zfz) Meeting ID: 357 560 842 163 Passcode: ToQCbF
Abstract
Within the scientific literature and debate on social investment, public childcare provision plays a pivotal role. At the same time, critics have argued that social investment is often unable to reduce social inequalities and, to the contrary, tends to reproduce them (the so-called ‘Matthew effect’). The article focuses on a specific facet of social investment policies: their capacity to support mothers’ employment and its effect on social inequality, by investigating empirically to what extent an expansion of public childcare can help to increase women’s labour market participation and how this eventual support is homogenously distributed among different mothers’ profiles. To give a convincing answer to such a question requires careful attention to methodology, in order to avoid drawing the wrong conclusions. Whereas existing research has predominately focused on cross-national variation and has often been static in nature, the present study assesses the effects of public childcare expansion on women’s labour market participation and employment by examining region-specific within-variation over time of public childcare coverage. The study relies on data from the European Social Survey (2002-2018) that were integrated with an original collection of regional-level information on public childcare. It finds a positive association between increases in public childcare coverage and mothers’ labour market participation. Furthermore, it shows that public childcare helps to fight social inequalities among households with young children. Low-educated mothers are the ones who profit most from an increase in public childcare, and positive employment effects are most pronounced at lower levels of childcare coverage. Therefore, this contribution highlights the importance of public childcare policies as an equalizer in society, especially in contexts in which an intervention is most needed, because expanding childcare fosters mothers’ labour market participation
On Tuesday 23 April 2024 at 16:30 join the online debate about Geographical Mobility in Italy, with a focus on ‘Aree interne’, animated by four GESI Professors: Davide Arcidiacono, Maurizio Avola, Nazareno Panichella and Francesca Tosi.
Thank to Fondazione Bruno Buozzi to organize this online event and host it on its Facebook and YouTube profiles. Find all information below:
We are glad to invite you at the next GESI SocioDemo Seminar of 2024, on Tuesday 16 April at 14:30:
How school closures affected students’ performance and inequalities.
Evidence from Italian municipalities
Authors
Paul Maneuvrier-Hervieu (Università di Milano)
Leo Azzollini (Università di Oxford)
Anne-Marie Jeannet (Università di Milano)
Further details
Tuesday 16 April 2024, h. 14.30-16.300
You can participate in presence:
SPS Seminar Room (1st FLOOR, CONSERVATORIO SIDE – via Conservatorio 7, Milan)
or online:
Online: MS TEAMS (link: urly.it/3_2a0) Meeting ID: 340 531 961 849 Password: acaqX6
Abstract
The global COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant changes in the field of education. Schools had to close, and students had to switch to online learning. This study aims to identify and examine three distinct school closure policies: one that applies to all schools universally, and two others that vary in terms of location and timing. We investigate how these policies have influenced the academic skills of students in mathematics and language in Italy. To do this, we consider the various ways different municipalities responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. We use data at the municipal level and measure the extent of school closures. Through a series of balancing and falsification tests, we determine that, in most cases, the implementation of the school closure policy was approximately random within provinces. Consequently, we estimate the effects of a school closure policy through fixed-effect models, relying on variation across municipalities within the same province. Our primary findings reveal the negative consequences of a more stringent school closure policy compared to the national lockdown in the first half of 2020. This policy negatively affected both mathematical and language skills. This impact can be summarized as a learning loss of about one and a half years. It’s important to note, however, that families from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds have shown the ability to partially compensate for this loss within a year.
Leaflet
16 4 24 Seminario Socio demo Paul Maneuvrier Hervieu
On 7-8 March 2024, Gesi researches of Milan and Catania units met to discuss about the on-going field researches and related publications.
Participants: Maurizio Avola, Davide Arcidiacono, Rosario D’Agata, Rossella Bozzon, Simona Gozzo, Fabrizio Ferreri, Francesca Montemagno, Alfredo Miceli (online), Nazareno Panichella, Francesca Tomatis, Maria Giulia Montanari, Valeria Breuker, Hanne Gaukel.
Thank for the great hospitality in the beautiful Catania!
(Gesi unit of Milan)
We are glad to invite you at the GESI SocioDemo Seminar on Tuesday, 20 February at 14:30.
Francesco Molteni (University of Milan) will present his joint work with Giulia Dotti Sani and Ismail Lamamra (University of Milan), titled:
“Stuck in the middle?
Perceived discrimination and cultural assimilation
of second-generation Muslim youth in Europe”
Tuesday 20 February 2024, h. 14.30-16.30
You can participate in presence or online. Further details:
SPS Seminar Room (I FLOOR, CONSERVATORIO SIDE – via Conservatorio 7, Milan)
or
MS TEAMS (link: urly.it/3-16b) ID riunione: 376 132 828 582 Passcode: PZSm8C
Abstract
This study examines cultural assimilation of immigrants in Europe, focusing on differences in attitudes towards gender roles, same-sex relationships, traditionalism, and religiosity between first and second generation immigrants and natives. It also considers the influence of religious background, perceived discrimination, and age on these differences, using two theoretical arguments (Cultural Proximity and Blocked Acculturation). The results show that, overall, second-generation migrants are more similar to natives across religious backgrounds. However, migrants from Muslim-majority countries still lag behind natives, though they are closing the gap faster than other migrants. Additionally, Muslim youth are assimilating less, particularly among those who perceive themselves as discriminated against. This suggests a form of “blocked acculturation” among younger second-generation immigrants of Muslim background.
Click here to download the leaflet
Starting from today 31 January until Saturday 3 February 2024, several GESI researchers are presenting their on-going studies at the VIII National Congress of the Italian Society of Economic Sociology (SISEC) titled “Employment, firms and territories between closeness and distance” at the University of Cagliari.
Join us at the Session 6 “Migrations, Inequalities and Territories” (room 12), coordinated by Professors Maurizio Avola, Roberto Impicciatore, and Nazareno Panichella.
Today the Center for Social Inequality Studies (CSIS) of University of Trento invited Prof. Nazareno Panichella (GESI’s principal investigator) to hold a Brown Bag Seminar on
Family Migration and Women’s Occupational Attainment over the Life Course.
An Empirical Analysis of the Tied Migration Argument in Interregional Internal Migration in Europe
Abstract
This study investigates the impact of geographical mobility and family dynamics on women’s employment outcomes in Europe, identifying patterns of (dis)advantages that accumulate over the life course. Specifically, the study focuses on interregional migration within Europe and tests the tied migration argument, which suggests that migration decisions are primarily influenced by the husband’s human capital, resulting in women becoming “tied migrants”. The study aims to understand whether this pattern of tied migration, where the husband’s employment goals take priority, negatively affects women’s occupational integration. Using ShareLife data, the study employs a set of linear regression panel models with hybrid RE-FE effects combined with coarsened exact matching (CEM). The results indicate that single women benefit from geographical mobility, while married or engaged women are penalized across all migration patterns, particularly when they are tied movers. The results also reveal the negative impact of family separation on the employment probability of women, particularly when they remain in their place of origin while their partner migrates. Additionally, the study finds that less-educated women are more negatively impacted by tied migration, while tertiary-educated women benefit from all migration patterns. Finally, the study highlights the long-term patterns of (dis)advantages that women face in the labour market due to family migration dynamics. The results suggest that family migration dynamics exacerbate the differences in the occupational outcomes of women with diverse family arrangements, emphasizing the importance of considering family migration dynamics in understanding the challenges of occupational integration faced by immigrant women.
This article in the local newspaper ‘NebrodiNews’ discusses our field researches on ‘inner areas’. In this case the focus is on the municipality of Castel di Lucio, where the GESI Unit of Catania collected several in-depth interviews to the inhabitants.
Take a look at the article (in Italian) here.
