Suchergebnisse

This paper is concerned with the measurement of social distance, clustering, or polarization between workers of a given society. This concept is fundamentally different from that of inequality and thus cannot be measured by any Lorenz consistent index. Similarly, it cannot be additively decomposed into within‐ and between‐group components using classical techniques. A new decomposition method is proposed and applied to Italian workers. The method provides an index that can be used both to calculate the distance between social groups classified according to worker characteristic and to track changes across time. The new method also reveals the factors that are reshaping the wage distribution and allows us to identify precisely where these effects are having their greatest impact.JEL classification: D30, D63, I32.

Income poverty rates are often used as indicators of the level of deprivation of populations and as measures of the relative position of sub-groups within populations. In this paper, we examine the links between monetary and non-monetary indicators of deprivation and social exclusion. We focus on children since they constitute one of the most vulnerable demographic groups in many countries. Understanding the poverty level and social exclusion of children is important not only in its own right but also because there is concem that the deprivation condition is transmitted from one generation to the next. Italy and Spain are two European countries that stand out for the high social risks faced by households with children. The welfare states of these two countries have put minimal effort in protecting these population groups. Our results strongly confirm the view that the use of non-monetary indicators enriches the analysis of well-being. It is indeed the case that the two countries, which perform very similarly in many aspects, show very diverse levels of deprivation and social exclusion once non-monetary indicators are used. In particular, Italy and Spain are characterized by substantial disparities in all the domains analyzed except for the domain of income poverty.

In this paper, we claim that children are in danger of social exclusion both in Italy and in Spain since social distance between age groups has increased over time. We use as a measure of social exclusion an index of polarization since neither the Lorenz-consistent inequality indices nor the measures of poverty are suited to this task. We look for the causes of this phenomenon by grouping children according to some characteristics of the household to which they belong. Our last aim is to measure the effects that government intervention has had on this phenomenon. We focus on public provisions of education and health care. One of the main findings is that public intervention was not at all successful in fighting this phenomenon, since welfare state institutions of the two countries were designed to combat risks associated with old age and not with childhood.

This paper develops an axiomatic approach to the measurement of social exclusion. At the individual level, social exclusion is viewed in terms of deprivation of the person concerned with respect to different functionings in the society. At the aggregate level we treat social exclusion as a function of individual exclusions. The class of subgroup decomposable social exclusion measures using a set of independent axioms is identified. We then look at the problem of ranking exclusion profiles by exclusion dominance principle under certain restrictions. Finally, applications of decomposable and non-decomposable measures suggested in the paper using European Union and Italian data are also considered.

We explore the determinants of individual wellbeing as measured by self‐reported levels of satisfaction with income and life. Making use of the German Socio‐Economic Panel, we provide empirical evidence for wellbeing depending on absolute and relative income levels in a dynamic framework where status and signal effects play a role. This finding holds after controlling for other factors in a multivariate setting. The main novelty is the consideration of dynamic aspects: the individual's own history and the relative income performance with respect to other society members play major roles in the assessment of individual wellbeing.

This paper develops an axiomatic approach to the measurement of social exclusion. At the individual level, social exclusion is viewed in terms of deprivation of the person concerned with respect to different functionings in the society. At the aggregate level we treat social exclusion as a function of individual exclusions. The class of subgroup decomposable social exclusion measures using a set of independent axioms is identified. We then look at the problem of ranking exclusion profiles by exclusion dominance principle under certain restrictions. Finally, applications of decomposable and non-decomposable measures suggested in the paper using European Union and Italian data are also considered.

We here use panel data from the COME-HERE survey to track income inequality during COVID-19 in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden. Relative inequality in equivalent household disposable income among individuals changed in a hump-shaped way over 2020. An initial rise from January to May was more than reversed by September. Absolute inequality also fell over this period. As such, policy responses may have been of more benefit for the poorer than for the richer.