Engendering economic statistics

1. Engendering economic statistics Women and economics: household, enterprise and decision-making bodies Cristina Freguja, Stefania Cardinaleschi, Lucia Coppola, Sara Demofonti Istat Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Rome, 10-12 December 2007

2. Introduction Economics has traditionally been a male-dominated sphere and the gender dimension has been absent in economic statistics and analysis Lack of: data, standard for surveying, comparable sources….. ...but also “simply” to look at the available data without a gender perspective preclude to draw up a detailed outline of women’s contribution to economics A growing informative demand is emerging in this domain and consequently gender statistics have to face new challenges

3. Introduction Challenges • Use of a gender perspective in data analysis • Enrichment of existing data sources with gender specific information • Integration of available data sources • Development of new surveys Some examples: • women’s contribution to the household income • women’s participation in enterprises • women’s representation in economic decision-making bodies

4. Household income Data and Methods EU-SILC 2004 provides standardized information at individual and household level about income and living conditions for: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden We consider: Married and cohabiting couples, composed by partners aged 25-54 years Partners earnings

5. Household income Research questions To what extent dual-earner model is spread in the EU countries? In dual-earner couples, women contribute as much as their partners to the household economic needs? Which individual and household characteristics are more likely to be associated with dual-earner couples? Among dual-earner couples, which are the characteristics associated with women’s levels of contribution?

6. Household income Data and Methods We define and compare: 1) man sole providercouplesVS. dual-earnercouples 2)man main provider(woman earns less than 40% of the couple earnings); equal providers (woman earns between the 40% and the 60% of the couple earnings); woman main provider (woman earns more than 60% of the couple earnings).

7. Household income An Overview

8. Household income Highest % of man sole provider: Spain, Greece…Luxembourg, Italy, Ireland (higher than 30%) Lowest % of man sole provider: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden (lower than 10 %)

9. Household income Man Sole Provider vs. Dual Earner Couples • ANALYSES • Logistic regression • Household and individual characteristics: • partners age and age difference • partners educational level and educational level difference • type of union (i.e. cohabitation or marriage) number and age of children • economic level of the household • FINDINGS • the dual-earner model is more likely to be associated with: • highly educated women • women more educated than their partners • cohabiting couples • without children in pre-scholar age • medium high levels of household income When comparing the association between household and individual characteristics and the dual-earner model, the North-South difference noted in the distribution of dual-earner couples among EU countries disappears

10. Household income An Overview

11. Woman main provider model: represents less than 16% of the couples in all countries Man main provider model: represents the more frequent strategy in most of the countries Household income

12. Household income Woman Main Provider vs. Equal Providers Man Main Provider vs. Equal Providers • the man main providermodel is commonly associated with: • low educated women • women less educated than their partners • presence of children, especially if in pre-scholar age • the woman main providermodel is commonly associated with: • highly educated women, • women more educated than their partners • the poorest quintiles of the income More convenient when the woman has not invested much in human capital, and her specialisation in domestic activities becomes extremely worthy for the presence of young children. For a woman, becoming the main provider, might be not only the result of high investments in human capital, but also of the need for supporting household economics.

13. Enterprises • An appropriate combination of results from different data sources may provide evidence of relevant gender dynamics • Study by ISTAT on women entrepreneurs (2001) • Data from • Industry and Services Census carried out in 1997, • Labour Force survey • Multipurpose survey on Everyday Life

14. Enterprises • only a quarter of enterprises were managed by women and their enterprises were generally smaller and concentrated in services to families • women-run enterprises were less integrated into the market: they made fewer agreements, received and requested fewer orders, had lower average yields and smaller sales-costs ratios • 53,3% of entrepreneur or self-employed women worked more than 60 hours per week, when considering work both within and outside the family; the same percentage for men was 26% (on average, men and women work respectively 54 and 64 hours) • BUT…… • smaller proportion of time devoted to the enterprise by women, in spite of a higher total number of hours worked (58.5% of male entrepreneurs work 46 hours and more per week, while only the 40.6% of female entrepreneurs do so)

15. Enterprises The activities inside and outside home lead to double burden, and the overload of work prevents female entrepreneurs from dedicating appropriately to their enterprises The situation does not seem to show signs of important improvements in last years The results from the Labour Cost Survey (LCS) carried out in 2004, that for the first time collected information on the sex of the entrepreneur, confirm that the women-run enterprisers play a role that is still secondary respect to the men’s ones Results from the time budget survey show a persistent asymmetry between the commitment of women and men in terms of familiar work, even if we can observe that participation of men to the domestic work is slowly increasing The workload inside home continues to have a big relevance in explaining the reality of women-run enterprises

16. Economic decision-making The last twenty years have seen a huge increase in the number of women participating in the labor force almost everywhere and in all sectors… …but the women’s representation at a decision-making level is much lower then men’s in major institutions The participation of women in high level economic decision-making is fundamental to give women and men an equal share of power and influence in policy making processes This is not only a demand for simple justice or democracy but can also be considered as a necessary condition for women's interests to be taken into account(Beijing Platform, 1995)

17. Economic decision-making Economic decision makers are those who occupy institutional positions in decision-making bodies, they are actively involved in the deliberation and determination of economic policies and they are responsible for implementing them on behalf of the State or the institution they represent Economic decisions made by either private or public actors, determine both present and future economic performance and assets, with obvious implications for everyone’s daily life

18. Economic decision-making • Aims • Adoption of adequate measures on the basis of the most appropriate monitoring indicators • Institutionalization of formal requirements to collect and provide data by sex • National Statistical Institutes responsible for pre-testing and revising the data collection instruments, designing and supervising the data collection process as well as the data validation and analysis

19. Economic decision-making Indicators Developed by the EU Italian Presidency to measure the representation of women and men in economic decision-making bodies The proportion and the number of women and men among… • Governors and deputy/vice-governors of the Central Banks • Members of the decision-making bodies of the Central Banks • Ministers and deputy ministers/vice-ministers of the Economic Ministries • Presidents and vice-presidents of the Labour Confederations • Total governing bodies of the Labour Confederations • Presidents and vice-presidents of the Employer Confederations • Members of total governing bodies of the Employer Confederations • Chiefs of executive boards of the 50 top firms publicly on the national stock exchange • Members of executive boards of the 50 top firms publicly on the national stock exchange

20. Summarizing New challenges are emerging for official statistics at international level: 1. look at the available data in a new perspective: as an instance, an appropriate analysis of EU-SILC based on a “couple perspective”, allows for understanding the interrelationship between partners and the balance between gender roles; 2. enrich existing data sources with pertinent variables and integrate different data sources: for example, as far as the enterprises are concerned, countries should collect sex disaggregated data about the entrepreneurs, collect information that allow to highlight critical aspects women have to face; to measure the contribution of women work in the household, by attributing an economic value to the familiar work; 3. carry out new surveys: for instance, referring to the economic decision-making bodies, it would be very important to guarantee the collection of data through the National Statistical Institutes, adopting a set of indicators able to measure the representation of women and men in this domain.