Income inequality among family members in Italy: who gains and who loses?

This paper looks at income inequality in Italy amongst the various components of the family. Employing the OECD procedure (OECD 2010) we calculate individual monetary contributions, based on the 2010 Italian Statistics on Income Living Conditions (IT-Silc) survey questionnaire. We define our indicator as the difference between the personal and per-capita income divided by the equivalent family income. Assuming that family members act as an income-equalising institution, regressions are run on the entire sample and on the sample split by gender; specifications include personal and family characteristics to capture their effects on reducing income inequality amongst family components. The estimates show that monetary contributions vary by gender. More educated women are more likely to be able to equalise consumption among family components, while for men, education is not significant once economic activities are controlled for. Predicted values recognise males as the primary breadwinners and underscore that men and women behave differently based on age.