IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trn/utwpde/0711.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality across cohorts of households: evidence from Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Gabriella Berloffa
  • Paola Villa

Abstract

In this paper we examine the evolution of household equivalent income for "cohorts of households" defined by the age of the household's head, using Italian data from the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), for the period between 1989 and 2004. The descriptive and econometric analysis reveals a deterioration of the economic conditions and prospects of young cohorts of households in comparison with older cohorts. This phenomenon is due to the joint occurrence of various events, like the institutional changes of the labour market, the poor economic performance of the economy and its adverse effects on white and blue collars, the new rules introduced for the pension system, and an exceptional increase in house prices and rents. Decreasing returns to education, the reduction in household size and the increase in the number of income recipients - due to both rising female participation and children living longer with their parents - are also found to have significant effects on the differences between cohorts at the same age.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriella Berloffa & Paola Villa, 2007. "Inequality across cohorts of households: evidence from Italy," Department of Economics Working Papers 0711, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    • Handle: RePEc:trn:utwpde:0711
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.unitn.it/files/11_07_berloffa.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paolo Barbieri & Stefani Scherer, 2005. "Le conseguenze sociali della flessibilizzazione del mercato del lavoro in Italia," Stato e mercato, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 291-322.
    2. Paul Beaudry & David A. Green, 2000. "Cohort patterns in Canadian earnings: assessing the role of skill premia in inequality trends," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(4), pages 907-936, November.
    3. Tito Boeri & Andrea Brandolini, 2004. "The Age of Discontent: Italian Households at the Beginning of the Decade," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 63(3-4), pages 449-487, December.
    4. Amanda Gosling & Stephen Machin & Costas Meghir, 2000. "The Changing Distribution of Male Wages in the U.K," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 635-666.
    5. Reinhard Hujer & Bernd Fitzenberger & Reinhold Schnabel & Thomas E. MaCurdy, 2001. "Testing for uniform wage trends in West-Germany: A cohort analysis using quantile regressions for censored data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 41-86.
    6. Martin Feldstein & Horst Siebert, 2002. "Social Security Pension Reform in Europe," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld02-2, March.
    7. Daniele Franco, 2002. "Italy: A Never-Ending Pension Reform," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Pension Reform in Europe, pages 211-262, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Lars Osberg, 2003. "Long Run Trends in Income Inequality in the United States, UK, Sweden, Germany and Canada: A Birth Cohort View," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 121-141, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Berloffa, Gabriella & Modena, Francesca, 2012. "Economic well-being in Italy: The role of income insecurity and intergenerational inequality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 751-765.
    2. Annamaria Simonazzi & Paolo Villa & Federico Lucidi, 2008. "Continuity and Change in the Italian Model: Italy's Laborious Convergence towards the European Social Model," Working Papers in Public Economics 108, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Esa Karonen & Mikko Niemelä, 2020. "Life Course Perspective on Economic Shocks and Income Inequality Through Age‐Period‐Cohort Analysis: Evidence From Finland," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(2), pages 287-310, June.
    2. Dirk Antonczyk & Thomas DeLeire & Bernd Fitzenberger, 2018. "Polarization and Rising Wage Inequality: Comparing the U.S. and Germany," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-33, April.
    3. Naticchioni, Paolo & Raitano, Michele & Vittori, Claudia, 2014. "La Meglio Gioventù: Earnings Gaps across Generations and Skills in Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 8140, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Paolo Naticchioni & Michele Raitano & Claudia Vittori, 2016. "La Meglio Gioventù: earnings gaps across generations and skills in Italy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 33(2), pages 233-264, August.
    5. Alfonso Rosolia & Roberto Torrini, 2007. "The generation gap: relative earnings of young and old workers in Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 639, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    6. Benoit Dostie & Genevieve Dufour & Raquel Fonseca & Étienne Lalé, 2020. "Évolution séculaire du profil des salaires en fonction de l’âge : Québec, Canada et États-Unis," CIRANO Project Reports 2020rp-21, CIRANO.
    7. Alessio Tomelleri, 2021. "Temporary jobs and increasing inequality for recent cohorts in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 35(4), pages 500-537, December.
    8. Cristiano Antonelli, 2017. "The Engines of the Creative Response: Reactivity and Knowledge Governance," Economía: teoría y práctica, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México, vol. 47(2), pages 9-30, Julio-Dic.
    9. Bernd Fitzenberger & Gary Mena & Jan Nimczik & Uwe Sunde, 2022. "Personality Traits Across the Life Cycle: Disentangling Age, Period and Cohort Effects," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2141-2172.
    10. Agar Brugiavini & Franco Peracchi & David A. Wise, 2002. "Pensions and Retirement Incentives. A Tale of Three Countries: Italy, Spain and the USA," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 61(2), pages 131-169, December.
    11. Brugiavini, Agar & Galasso, Vincenzo, 2004. "The social security reform process in Italy: where do we stand?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 165-195, July.
    12. Francesca Modena & Concetta Rondinelli & Fabio Sabatini, 2014. "Economic Insecurity and Fertility Intentions: The Case of Italy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S1), pages 233-255, May.
    13. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    14. Chiara Ardito, 2017. "Rising pension age in Italy: Employment response and Program substitution," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 155, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    15. Dickson, Matt & Postel-Vinay, Fabien & Turon, Hélène, 2014. "The lifetime earnings premium in the public sector: The view from Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 141-161.
    16. Green, David A. & Worswick, Christopher, 2012. "Immigrant earnings profiles in the presence of human capital investment: Measuring cohort and macro effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 241-259.
    17. Kristiyan Hadjiev, 2005. "Transformation Model for Organisational Development," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 5, pages 37-52.
    18. Robert Fenge & Martin Werding, 2004. "Ageing and the tax implied in public pension schemes: simulations for selected OECD countries," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 25(2), pages 159-200, June.
    19. Green, David A. & Milligan, Kevin & Frenette, Marc, 2006. "Revisiting Recent Trends in Canadian After-Tax Income Inequality Using Census Data," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2006274e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    20. France Portrait & Rob Alessie & Dorly Deeg, 2010. "Do early life and contemporaneous macroconditions explain health at older ages?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(2), pages 617-642, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Household Income; Inequality; Cohort Analysis.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:trn:utwpde:0711. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Luciano Andreozzi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detreit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.