Working Papers del DiSIA
Health in early adulthood and fertility: a study based on the 1958 British cohort
Eleonora Trappolini, Giammarco Alderotti, Alyce Raybould
Although the relationship between health and fertility in low-income settings has been well explored by demographers, it is surprisingly lacking from equivalent studies in high-income contexts. In this study, we use data from the 1958 National Child Development Study to understand how self-rated health and BMI reported at age 23 relate to achievement of fertility goals by age 46. We found that worse self-reported health and being outside of the healthy weight BMI category at 23 was strongly associated with having fewer children and underachieving fertility goals set at age 23 by 46. These results remained when controlling for socioeconomic controls like education and union history. Our findings suggest that health in early adulthood is an important determinant, whether direct or indirect, for individuals’ family life course trajectories. This paper strongly endorses the inclusion of health as an explanatory variable for all studies of fertility in high-income contexts.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
Kinlessness at older ages: Prevalence and heterogeneity in 27 countries
Marta Pittavino, Bruno Arpino, Elena Pirani
Availability of kin has profound effects on the lives of people, especially in later life when social networks tend to be composed prevalently of family members, and care needs increase. Using data from the last wave (wave 8; 2019-2020) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we estimate the prevalence of kinlessness (i.e., absence of close kin) among older adults aged 65 and more in 27 countries. We consider different definitions of kinlessness, from a less restrictive (i.e., based only on the absence of both partner and children) to a more restrictive one (based also on the absence of grandchildren, parents and siblings). Results show a large variation of kinlessness across countries. The proportion of adults aged 65 and above who lack both a partner and children range between 2-3.5% in Czech Republic, Romania, Israel, and Bulgaria, and more than 8% in Switzerland, Spain, Belgium and Malta. The percentage of older people lacking all considered kin ranges from 0.1 to 4.1%. In addition, in some countries there is a substantial heterogeneity in kinlessness by age and sex. Differences by education are, instead, rare. Understanding the prevalence of older individuals without close kin is critical for policymakers and healthcare providers to design appropriate support systems for this particularly vulnerable group of older people and their possibly unmet care needs.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
Lotto e giochi di sorte, vecchi e nuovi.
Marco Marchi
Games of chance are those whose outcome, unlike games of stille, depends on some element of randomization; they have characterized every era and nation, also often constituting one of the most notable sources of state financing. In Italy the administration in charge of this is the AAMS State Monopolies. We will review the existing games of chance in our country and propose new ones in connection with the Lotto draws. For each of them, the probability of winning and the I.E. index will be reported (in relation to what was paid in the event of success), thus allowing a comparison between the various gaming alternatives.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
No socio-economic differences in ART treatment success: Evidence from Careggi Hospital, Italy
Marco Cozzani, Maria Elisabetta Coccia, Emilia Giusti, Sara Landini, Francesca Piazzini, Valentina Tocchioni, Daniele Vignoli
Objective. Several studies have shown stark socio-economic disparities in births born via assisted reproduction technology (ART), but only a few have investigated underlying causes. We study the likelihood of ART treatment success as a possible explanation.
Design. Observational study of center-based data. We consider women undergoing ART treatment at the ART-center in Careggi Hospital, Tuscany.
Outcome Measures. Probability of a conception following an ART treatment; probability of abortion after conception; and probability of a live birth after an ART treatment.
Results. The findings indicate no socio-economic disparity between patients with a high and low socio-economic status in the probability of achieving a successful ART treatment in terms of the probability of conception (β=0.02; 95% CI, -0.02, 0.06; P=0.362), abortion (β=-0.02; 95% CI, -0.08, 0.04; P=0.542) and live birth (β=0.02; 95% CI, -0.02, 0.06; P=0.291). The results also hold when focusing on patients at first treatment, only among natives, and by age groups.
Conclusions. Our findings suggest that within a public clinic providing subsidized access to treatments, socio-economic differences in the proportion of ART births may not stem from disparities in treatment success rates. Rather, other determinants relating to access to ART treatment such as geographical barriers, cultural preferences or knowledge about treatment success may play a larger role.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
An Elephant in the Classroom: Teacher Bias by Student SES or Ability Measurement Bias?
Carlos J. Gil-Hernández, Mar C. Espadafor
Teachers are academic merit gatekeepers. Yet their potential role in reproducing inequality via assessments was overlooked or not correctly identified, being an elephant in the classroom. This article teases if teacher grades and track recommendations are biased by student SES or unobserved ability, leading to overestimation in prior research. Using the German NEPS panel across elementary education, we identify student ability with multiple cognitive and noncognitive composite measures and an instrumental variable design. We further assess heterogeneity along the ability distribution to test whether, according to the compensatory hypothesis, teacher bias is largest among low-performers. First, accounting for measurement error, teacher bias declines by 40%, indicating substantial overestimation in previous studies. Second, it concentrates on underperformers, suggesting high-SES parental compensatory strategies to boost teacher assessments. Thus, families and teachers might influence each other in the evaluation process. We discuss the findings’ theoretical and methodological implications for teacher bias as an educational reproduction mechanism.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
Housing Conditions, Neighbourhood Area and Life Satisfaction in Old Age
Elena Pirani, Maria Veronica Dorgali, Valentina Tocchioni, Alessandra Petrucci
In this study, we contribute to the growing, albeit still limited, body of research on the importance of the living environment for individual well-being, focusing on the population aged 65 and over in Italy. We explore life satisfaction, a cognitive component of an individual’s well-being that may help evaluate individuals’ ability to adapt to life changes and challenges of ageing. We investigate various aspects of the living environment, both the indoor characteristics of the housing – its quality and adequacy – and the outdoor features of the immediate neighbourhood environment – its liveability and accessibility. The study provides robust evidence that adequate housing conditions might positively influence the life satisfaction of Italian older adults. Besides, we found that aspects relative to the living environment – namely area friendliness, its maintenance and (absence of) pollution, and the ease of access to shops and services are valuable for a satisfying life. Importantly, whether an inevitable overlap between these characteristics may exist, both housing and neighbourhood living conditions, in their various facets, exert a separate, specific, and substantial role in life satisfaction. Our results might inform city planning interventions about the advantages of creating friendly communities and well-designed urban spaces to support active ageing.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
Partners’ Health and Silver Splits in Europe: A Gendered Pattern?
Daniele Vignoli, Giammarco Alderotti, Cecilia Tomassini
Objective
As populations age, family dynamics are inherently intertwined with health issues. This paper addresses the correlates of silver splits – i.e., voluntary union dissolutions after the age of 50 – in Europe by focusing on the role of partners’ health status.
Background
Family diversity at later ages is growing in wealthy countries, with late union dissolutions increasingly occurring through separation and divorce rather than widowhood. Nonetheless, we know little about the correlates of silver splits in Europe, especially regarding the role of health status.
Method
We use data from the European Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement, and employ discrete-time event history analysis to model the probability of silver splits, separately for couples in which both partners are aged 50–64 and for couples in which at least one partner is 65 or older. We inspect three different health dimensions for both partners within a couple: the self-rated health, the Global Activity Limitations Index, and depression.
Results
Our results indicate a non-negligible association between health status and union dissolution among couples aged 50–64, with gender playing a crucial role. When the male partner has poor self-rated health or activity limitations, but the female partner is healthy, the risk of union dissolution remains similar to that of healthy couples. However, if the female partner has poor self-rated health or activity limitations while the male partner is healthy, the risk of union dissolution increases significantly. Additionally, poor mental health in either partner (or both) raises the risk of union dissolution. The results regarding couples in which at least one partner is aged 65 are less informative, suggesting that the role of health in shaping silver splits may weaken with age.
Conclusion
Researchers should consider how health operates as a stressor on union stability and should exercise caution in interpreting cross-sectional studies as evidence of the benefits of unions. Among couples in the early phase of old age (50–64), gendered health-related selection effects are at play, with men struggling more than women with a partner’s deteriorating health, jeopardizing the couple’s stability.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU, in the context of The National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Investment Partenariato Esteso PE8 “Conseguenze e sfide dell'invecchiamento”, Research Program Age-It (Ageing Well in an Ageing Society, PE8-B83C22004800006). The authors are thankful to the colleagues from the Unit of Population and Society (UPS) of the University of Florence, to the members of the Laboratory on Longevity and Ageing (LoLA), to Damiano Uccheddu and to Francesca Zanasi for their comments.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
When things do not change: non-intact families and adolescents’ risks of substance use across 30 European countries and two decades
Raffaele Guetto, Maria Francesca Morabito, Elisa Benedetti, Sonia Cerrai, Daniele Vignoli
Substantial evidence indicates that children in non-intact families experience higher risks of substance use compared to those living with both parents. The ‘institutionalization hypothesis’ suggests that this penalty for children living in non-intact families should weaken–or even vanish–as new family behaviors become more prevalent and socially accepted. Our study tests the institutionalization hypothesis by examining the relationship between family arrangements and adolescents' susceptibility to using cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco, utilizing a unique dataset that spans 21 years across 30 European countries. We measure the diffusion of new family behaviors with a comprehensive country-year index encompassing the rise in divorces and extra-marital births, and the decline in marriages, distinguishing its between-country and within-country components. Our findings indicate that adolescents from non-intact families, either in single-parent families, stepfamilies, or no-parent families, are more likely to engage in the use of cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco. Importantly, their higher risks of substance use appear to be strikingly persistent regardless of the between-country and within-country diffusion of new family behaviors. Thus, the paper provides robust evidence against the institutionalization hypothesis.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
On Spatio-Temporal Stochastic Frontier Models
Elisa Fusco, Giuseppe Arbia, Francesco Vidoli, Vincenzo Nardelli
In the literature on stochastic frontier models until the early 2000s, the joint consideration of spatial and temporal dimensions was often inadequately addressed, if not completely neglected. However, from an evolutionary economics perspective, the production process of the decision-making units constantly changes over both dimensions: it is not stable over time due to managerial enhancements and/or internal or external shocks, and is influenced by the nearest territorial neighbours. This paper proposes an extension of the Fusco and Vidoli (2013) SEM-like approach, which globally accounts for spatial and temporal effects in the term of inefficiency. In particular, coherently with the stochastic panel frontier literature, two different versions of the model are proposed: the time-invariant and the time-varying spatial stochastic frontier models. In order to evaluate the inferential properties of the proposed es- timators, we first run Monte Carlo experiments and then present the results of an application to a set of commonly referenced data, demonstrating robustness and stability of estimates across all scenarios.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
Ultimo aggiornamento 16 ottobre 2024.