Simone Sarti

Changes in the labour market and health inequalities during the years of the recent economic downturn in Italy

There is widespread concern that episodes of unemployment and unstable working conditions adversely affect health. We add to the debate by focusing on the relationship between work trajectory and the self-reported health of Italian men and women during the present economic downturn. Relying on Italian data in the EU-SILC project (from 2007 to 2010), our sample includes all individuals aged 30 to 60 in 2010, and uses multivariate binomial regression models for preliminary analyses and the Structural Equations modelling (SEM) to observe the cumulative effects of health status according to different job trajectories. Our main findings show similar pictures for men and women. Individuals who are unemployed, ejected or in precarious occupational positions have a higher risk of worsening their health status during these years.

A Comparative Analysis of Inequality in Health Across Europe

The study of inequality in health concerns the relationship between socially structured characteristics and health outcomes. Howewer, health disparities are also linked to purely individual characteristics and contextual ones. In particular, the contextual effect at a national level may reflect differences in the functioning and performing of national health institutions, that may be conceived as further determinants of health inequalities. In this work we aim at estimating the effect of education on self-assessed health across European countries, taking into account potential confounders like age, gender and family social background. Using a multilevel model with individuals nested in countries, we can achieve two aims. First, we can see whether countries differ in their average self-assessed health score. Second, we can test our hypothesis about the existence of a European social gradient, that is that education exerts a relatively constant effect on self-assessed health. We develop our models using data from European Social Surveys (88,842 interviews).

Il benessere e la deprivazione delle famiglie italiane

This essay tries to develop the multidimensional perspective to the investigation of social exclusion using a new version of clustering procedures, based on neural networks techniques. Our central aim is to make a fuzzy map of the Italian Well-Being compressing a certain number of indicators as regards as basic lifestyle, subjective well-being, health conditions, social relations, housing problems, durable lack onto a two-dimensional fuzzy space. More specifically we use the Kohonen Map, an unsupervised clustering procedure, to realise a topological segmentation of Italian families onto a two dimensional display along which it is possible to identify differential groups of families featured by different standards of living. The fuzzy Map is made of prototypical cluster each of which recognise families (and individuals) featured by a particular combination of deprivation and well-being indicators. Families (or individuals) situated in a closeness tend to share similar characteristics, while families (farther) in the fuzzy map show pronounced differences. We make use of the Multiscopo ISTAT dataset (2001) to explore the structure of correlations among the indicators and to recognise different forms and level of vulnerability and social exclusion. With multilevel logistic regression models we will demonstrate how education, employment status and life events continue to be powerful predictors of the multiple deprivation and of the social exclusion in Italy although with significant variations across geographical regions.

Gambling: the Iniquity of a Voluntary Tax. The relationship between socio-economic position and propensity of gambling

Italian sociology has largely overlooked gambling, even if it is a widespreadphenomenon with important socio-economic redistributive consequences. Inthis paper, we aim to fill this gap exploring the relationship between socio-economicposition and propensity to gamble among Italian households in the last decade. Inthe first part, we describe the main features of legal gambling in Italy and its importancefor the States revenues. In the second part, we review the main researchfindings from other countries, we discuss the main theories about social stratificationof gambling and elaborate our research hypotheses. In the last part, we analyse datafrom three waves of the Istats survey on Consumption of Italian Households (1999,2003, 2008), focusing on participation and monthly expenditure in «Lotto, lotteriesand soccer gambling». Results of non-parametric (Lorentz curves, Suits index) andparametric analyses (probit and OLS regression) indicate that gambling in Italy canbe considered as a form of (voluntary) regressive taxation, because the less affluenthouseholds spend on gambling a higher proportion of their income than richerfamilies. Furthermore, the effect of income on gambling expenditure is larger amongthe lower educated families. At the end, there is evidence of a higher propensityto gamble among households of the working class, with fewer women and elderly,and from the South of Italy.

The role of social and cognitive factors in individual gambling: An empirical study on college students

Most of the studies on the determinants of individual gambling behaviour rely on cognitive theories. In our study, we argue that, besides cognitive factors, several social factors might play an important role as well. We analyse data from an ad hoc webmail survey conducted on about 2000 undergraduate students enrolled in a large public university in the Northern Italy in the academic year 2012-13. Using a variety of statistical techniques (standard regression models, boosted regression trees and structural equations models), we show that social variables affect both participation in gambling in the past year and latent gambling propensity. In particular, controlling for several proxies for individual cognitive ability and understanding of probability, gambling propensity is positively affected by the degree of gambling in the social surrounding (parents, peers, neighbourhood) and the acceptability of gambling activities to the individual. Moreover, in our sample of college students the role of social factors appears to be larger than that of cognitive factors, and this is consistent across different types of models and specifications.

Individualisation and Poverty Over Time: The Italian Case (1985–2011)

ABSTRACT In the last few years, much sociological debate has focused on individualisation theory, especially on Becks risk society version. According to this theory, contemporary social change can be interpreted as the progressive weakening of the influence of social structures on individual behaviour. Individualisation theory has been adopted in many fields of study (voting behaviour, consumption behaviour, etc.). Although much of the debate has a theoretical character, there have been some attempts to empirically assess individualisation theory. As far as poverty is concerned, scholars supporting individualisation theory, as well as scholars opposing it, have adopted one of the following methodological strategies: highlighting the role played by individual variables (especially by life course variables) rather than structural variables; controlling for individual rather than structural variables. Both these approaches focus on short observation windows; however, it is necessary to consider long periods in order to assess the core of individualisation theory, i.e. the decreasing influence of social structures. Our approach assesses the change (rather than the stability) of the individual-level relationship between structures (occupational classes, education, etc.) and poverty over a long time period. This changing-parameter model is implemented through multilevel modelling with families at level one and years at level two. The analysis focuses on the Italian case and it is based on data from the Family Expenditure Survey (Indagine sui Consumi delle Famiglie) that was collected by the Italian Statistical Institute (ISTAT). It covers the period from 1985 to 2011. The results seem to indicate that there is stability in the relationship between structures and poverty.

Stili di vita nell’Italia della crisi: il cambiamento nelle abitudini insalubri secondo le condizioni lavorative

Un’ampia letteratura riconosce nelle condizioni strutturali un importante determinante del deterioramento delle condizioni di salute degli individui. Molti studi documentano come le tradizionali variabili di stratificazione sociale influenzino la salute. Tuttavia, sappiamo anche che il peggioramento delle condizioni socio-economiche si trasmette solo in parte in modo diretto. Sussistono infatti numerosi effetti trasversali e indipendenti dalla posizione sociale legati a stili di vita individuali e familiari. Descrivere le dinamiche di queste relazioni, anche alla luce dei cambiamenti imposti dalla crisi economica, appare un compito di centrale importanza. Alcuni autori, ad esempio, sostengono che fasi di recessione economica producano effetti ambivalenti sulle condizioni di salute. Date queste premesse, e nostro interesse mostrare i cambiamenti in alcuni fattori di rischio negli anni della crisi associati all’ambito territoriale e alla posizione occupazionale. Cio e stato fatto impiegando i dati ISTAT Multiscopo Aspetti della vita quotidiana. Le analisi sono state condotte con tecniche di regressione multivariata gerarchica. Tra i fattori di rischio epidemiologicamente validati l’attenzione e stata posta sui seguenti: 1) fumo; 2) alcool; 3) alimentazione e 4) attivita fisica. L’obiettivo piu generale dello studio e migliorare la comprensione dell’intricato sistema di relazioni tra posizione occupazionale, stili di vita e salute, in modo da offrire conoscenze utili al decisore pubblico, al fine di predisporre interventi maggiormente informati di prevenzione primaria e secondaria sulla salute. I risultati evidenziano una sostanziale stabilita negli anni dal 2005 al 2013, con l’eccezione di un decremento generalizzato del consumo di alcol. La stratificazione occupazionale degli stili di vita persisterebbe praticamente immutata, mentre l’unica categoria sociale che sembrerebbe presentare un peggioramento in alcuni comportamenti insalubri (in particolare, fumo e attivita fisica) e costituita dai soggetti in cerca di lavoro nel Sud Italia, area particolarmente colpita dalla crisi.

The role of individual characteristics and municipalities in social inequalities in perceived health (Italy, 2010–2012): a multilevel study

BackgroundsThe empirical evidence shows discordant results regarding the role of local contexts on individual health. This article considers the role of the municipal socio-economic contexts on self-rated health in Italy, taking into account some individual variables.MethodsMultilevel model software (MlwiN) is used to fit multilevel linear regression models of perceived health. Individual data are from the Italian surveys on “Aspects of Daily Life” 2010, 2011 and 2012, collected by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat). In addition, municipality-level social, demographic and economic characteristics are from the 2011 Census and the database “Atlas of Italian Municipalities” (Istat).ResultsThe main findings of this study confirm that, controlling for age and gender at the individual level, poor health is influenced by socio-economic positions: lower education, not working or looking for employment and disadvantaged family social class predict higher perceived health. The individual level explains the 70.1% heterogeneity in self-assessed health, the family level 25.6% and the municipality level only 4.3%. The additional influence of the socio-economic context is, conversely, of little substantive importance.ConclusionsFinally, by showing that variability in health relates mainly to individual characteristics, this study suggests that intervention to mitigate social inequalities in health should focus on structural factors, such as education and the labour market.