Discriminating factors of women's employment

Abstract

Italy exhibits a dramatic level of territorial heterogeneity in terms of socioeconomic dynamics and in the economic position of women. We employ this territorial variance to assess the impact of selected policies and institutions on men's and women's employment using microeconomic data. Such an analysis provides results partly different from what was expected on the basis of cross-country aggregate evidence on industrialized countries. Aggregate growth and tertiarization of the economy are surprisingly found beneficial only to men's employment, while culture and discrimination are relevant for women's. Social Assistance is found highly significant too, with the provision of services being more beneficial to women's employment than monetary transfers

Women's Employment: Joining Explanations Based on Individual Characteristics and on Contextual Factors

“…13 On the other hand, it captures the increasing relevance of public policies aimed at meeting the increased demand for long-term care and assistance. These considerations are validated by the empirical finding, which shows that having children exhibits an ambiguous and often not significant impact on women's employment, as noted, for example, by Haas et al (2006), Del Sauer (2009), andCipollone andD'Ippoliti (2010).…”

“…By prominent self-employment this paper means those occupations (namely general practitioner and specialized medical occupations, notary, business consultant, barrister and other law consultants) that enjoy high income and respected social status as a consequence not only of the high skills involved, but also of the public certifications that are necessary to enter the profession. As the issue of these certifications is managed by the very same professional associations, they are able to erect high barriers to entry and are more likely to discriminate against women, as noted by Cipollone and D'Ippoliti (2010).…”

“…The American Journal of Economics and Sociology levels of the more educated women are similar across Italy's regions, and the reward for human capital investments in terms of employability does not appear to be related to the institutional context (Cipollone and D'Ippoliti 2010). …”

Knowledge and job opportunities in a gender perspective: Insights from Italy

“…We also computed a final measure of work-related knowledge, arguably closer to the neoclassical notion of firm-specific knowledge, that is tenure, the number of years spent working for the current employer. As for the other two variables, women's mean value is significantly lower than men's (around 7 years for men and 5 years for women), as a consequence of both women's lower participation in the labor market and women's overrepresentation among the workers employed on flexible and fixed-term work arrangements (Cipollone and D'Ippoliti 2010).…”