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Gender and Children’s Wellbeing: Four Mediterranean Countries in Perspective

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Abstract

In this paper, we discuss gender disparities in children’s wellbeing using the Integrated Fuzzy and Relative (IFR) methodology adapted to the framework of the Capability Approach. The aim is to obtain insights into the multidimensional nature of children’s wellbeing by considering seven children’s capabilities. The study is conducted using cross-sectional data from the 2009 European Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) referring to four Southern European countries: Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. The role of gender in children’s wellbeing is investigated by using two different perspectives at the household level: the gender of single parents and the gender of the children. The results indicate that there is a gender effect from both the investigated perspectives. Thus, our findings suggest that dimension-specific and gendered policies are needed to improve children’s wellbeing.

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Notes

  1. We refer to the social protection benefits classification in the European system of integrated social protection statistics (ESSPROS). Social protection benefits are defined as transfers to households, in cash or in kind, intended to relieve them of the financial burden of several risks and needs. These include disability, sickness/healthcare, old age, survivors, family/children, unemployment, housing and social exclusion not covered elsewhere.

  2. The data can be obtained from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/social-protection/data/main-tables

  3. Obviously, the manners in which and degree to which these conditions affect household members could be different, but this issue cannot be resolved with these data. However, the EU-SILC 2009 data also provide answers to specific questions related to children that partially correct this problem.

  4. Data available at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/income-and-living-conditions/data/main-tables

  5. Details regarding these analyses are available upon request to the authors.

  6. The use of non-parametric tests is bounded by the strong non-normality of fuzzy measures. However, on the other hand, Dunn’s test sacrifices the precision of discriminating means for the discrimination of stochastic dominance (that is, the probability that a randomly drawn observation from one group will be greater than a randomly drawn observation from another). Consequentially, the p-values reported in Table 7 do not directly refer to the ratios presented in the corresponding radar charts, but they can be used to illustrate significant differences between groups. The computation of the proper standard errors of fuzzy measures requires a methodological upgrade of the IFR procedure that is still under development and that requires household-level information from the EU-SILC that may be not available for all countries (e.g. information about the primary sampling units, rotational groups, and strata). Therefore, the implemented Dunn’s test must be considered an easy, although crude, method of overcoming these issues.

  7. Culture refers to attitudes and patterns of behaviour in a given group while norm refers to attitudes and behaviours that are considered normal, typical or average within that group. The idea that cultural norms, internalized social rules, affect individual values and behaviours is a fundamental feature of human life and many prominent lines of psychological and sociological work have focused on these concepts (i.e. Cialdini et al. 1991; Van den Bos et al. 2005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management and Quantitative Studies, University of Naples Parthenope, Via Medina 40, 80133, Naples, Italy

    Antonella D’Agostino

  2. Department of Economics and Management, University of Pisa, Via C. Ridolfi, 10, 56124, Pisa, Italy

    Caterina Giusti

  3. Faculty of Educational Sciences, Bielefeld University, Universitaetsstrasse 25, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany

    Antoanneta Potsi

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D’Agostino, A., Giusti, C. & Potsi, A. Gender and Children’s Wellbeing: Four Mediterranean Countries in Perspective. Child Ind Res 11, 1649–1676 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-018-9526-7

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