We invite you at the 1st GESI SocioDemo Seminar of 2024, on Tuesday 16 January at 14:30. Emanuele Fedeli (University of Trento) will present his joint work with Moris Triventi (University of Milan) titled

How school closures affected students’ performance and inequalities. Evidence from Italian municipalities.

You can participate in presence or online.

Further details:
Tuesday 16 January 2024, h. 14.30-16.30
SPS Seminar Room (I FLOOR, CONSERVATORIO SIDE – via Conservatorio 7, Milan)
or
MS TEAMS: https://msteams.link/2C0H (ID riunione: 329 063 003 323 Passcode: rKN6L4)

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.

Today, Rocco Molinari from the University of Bologna presented
his joint work with Roberto Impicciatore and Livia Elisa Ortensi titled

Legal Status and Immigrants’ Fertility in Italy:
Investigating Previous Undocumented Histories

Stay tuned for the next appointment on 16th January 2024!

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Today, December 1st 2023, several GESI researchers participated in the XIII Edition of the Interdisciplinary Study Day in Economic-Political Geography “BEYOND GLOBALIZATION: Sud/South”, organized by the Society of Geographical Studies (SSG) at the COSPECS Department of the University of Messina.

Three presentations were discussed, all with a focus on the inner areas of Southern Italy:

Maria Rita Testa, Eleonora Meli and Barbara Brollo Dinamiche di fecondità del Sud Italia, tra intenzioni e fecondità effettiva

Fabrizio Ferreri, Alfredo Miceli, Maurizio Avola and Davide Arcidiacono Dalla condiscendenza alla coscienza di luogo: quale modello di sviluppo emerge dalle aree interne?

Simona Gozzo, Francesca Montemagno and Francesca Tomatis Emergenza dello svantaggio e mediazione politica: quale governance per lo sviluppo del territorio?

We invite you to the next GESI Seminar on Wednesday, 22nd November 2023 at 14:30.

Antonina Zhelenkova (University of Milan) will present her research on
The impact of social origin on the motherhood employment penalty and
its heterogeneity by partner’s social class and country context

Both live and online participation is welcome!

SPS Seminar Room (1st floor, Conservatorio side)
Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Economiche e Sociali in via Conservatorio n. 7, Milano

MS TEAMS (link: https://urly.it/3y707) ID riunione: 312 495 645 066 Passcode: AmMLec

Chair:  Francesca Tomatis (University of Milan)

Abstract:  The study is focused on the interplay between the family-of-origin (social class of origin) and the family of-destination (motherhood, partner’s resources) factors in shaping women’s employment outcomes. Although several studies have examined the role of education for women’s employment, there is no evidence on how social origin, net of educational achievement, might impact the labour market outcomes associated with motherhood and how this effect might change depending on partner’s resources and country context. Using SHARELIFE data and random effects models, the study shows that mothers with advantaged social origins have higher chances of being employed compared to mothers with less privileged backgrounds, net of the educational level. This effect is further amplified with the increase of the number of children, whereas the role of the partner’s resources in the interplay with a woman’s social origin is limited. A country comparative analysis shows that the employment disadvantage of mothers from working-class families compared to mothers from middle- or upper-class families is relatively larger in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland,  characterized by limited support for female workforce participation, traditional gender role attitudes, as well as highly rigid (Germany, Austria) or highly competitive and segmented (Switzerland) labour markets. At the same time, the differences are less pronounced in Sweden characterized by extensive public support for childcare, open and egalitarian mobility opportunities, as well as in Southern European countries where average female employment rates are the lowest so that the direct effect of social origin makes no difference for motherhood penalties.

On 18 October 2023 we inaugurated a new cicle of GESI SocioDemo Seminars for the academic year 2023/2024, with the engaging presentation on the interrelation between Unemployment and Political Trust at individual, regional and national levels, held by Leo Azzolini (Univerity of Oxford).

Next appointment on 21 November 2023 with Antonina Zhelenkova – stay tuned!

Continue reading→

All GESI researchers just met in Rome, in the occasion of the 2nd GESI Workshop (12-13 October 2023) hosted by the amazing location of the University LUISS Guido Carli.

Thank to Rome GESI unit for organizing such a great chance to present our works in progress and discuss together, enhancing the coordination and collaboration among both working packages and local units.

We also had the pleasure to confront with the two intriguing keynote speeches held by Giulia Ferrari (Ined) and Marco Marsili (Istat), who joined our discussion about central and marginal areas.

Waiting for the next GESI Workshop in Catania !

Our field researches keep capturing the attention of local press. In the case of the community of Sant’Albano, a small municipality in the province of Cuneo, GESI’s researchers are investigating how networks develop in inner areas, filling in a critical research gap, mostly due to a complete absence of suitable data. Similar studies bring the potential to offer an unprecedented contribution to our understanding of social life.

Stefano Cantalini and Nazareno Panichella presented a GESI research on geographical marginality and returns to education at the ECSR (European Consortium of Sociological Research) Conference on September 18^th – 20^th 2023, titled “European Societies in Times of Uncertainty“.

GESI researchers are presenting their scientific project to the local communities under study. We aim to involve people in the on-going process of elaboration and discussion of our empirical results.

Let’s discover together new ways to reshape our understanding of ‘inner areas’, and give them value!