Economic life cycle and intergenerational transfers in Italy: the gendered dimension of production and the value of time

This paper aims to complete the existing work on National Transfer Accounts (NTA) for Italy, estimating National Time Transfer Accounts (NTTA). According to Eurostat, among European countries, Italy has the second lower female employment rate. Although about half of the female population is not employed in the labor market, women have a very important role in non-market production. The exclusion of unpaid domestic work from national accounts leads to an underestimation of total production and of that provided by women, who invest more time in productive activities dedicated to household and family care. This is of particular interest for Italy, since we assume that the strong Mediterranean family model together with the absence of effective social protection policies, may result in high levels of non-monetary transfers between family members and, hence, of non-monetary production.
Our preliminary results highlight the existence of strong gender inequalities in household production. As we will develop our analysis, we expect to evaluate the extent of gender inequality both in market and non-market production. Then, we will focus on intergenerational private transfers trying to give an insight on family role in supporting deficit ages and transmitting well-being in the Italian institutional setting.