Italian Gender Research Articles

The Increase of the Gender Wage Gap in Italy During the 2008-2012 Economic Crisis

The paper examines the gender wage gap in Italy during the 2008-2012 economic crisis, using cross-sectional EU-SILC data. The gender wage gap increased from 4\% in 2008 to 8\% in 2012, while for most European countries the gap decreased over the same period. After 2010 the growth of the Italian gender wage gap (and its unexplained component) was particularly high in the upper part of the wage distribution. In 2010-2011 a wage freeze in the public sector was introduced as an austerity measure, and the average public sector premium dropped from 15\% to 11\%. Using counterfactual analyses, we show that the wage freeze has been one of the major causes of the growth of the gender wage gap, disproportionately affecting women, who are more likely to be employed in the public sector. This `policy effect' accounts for more than 100\% of the increase between 2009 and 2011, while other changes, if anything, would have reduced the gender gap.

The gender congruency effect during bilingual spoken-word recognition.

We investigate the 'gender-congruency' effect during a spoken-word recognition task using the visual world paradigm. Eye movements of Italian-Spanish bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals were monitored while they viewed a pair of objects on a computer screen. Participants listened to instructions in Spanish (encuentra la bufanda / 'find the scarf') and clicked on the object named in the instruction. Grammatical gender of the objects' name was manipulated so that pairs of objects had the same (congruent) or different (incongruent) gender in Italian, but gender in Spanish was always congruent. Results showed that bilinguals, but not monolinguals, looked at target objects less when they were incongruent in gender, suggesting a between-language gender competition effect. In addition, bilinguals looked at target objects more when the definite article in the spoken instructions provided a valid cue to anticipate its selection (different-gender condition). The temporal dynamics of gender processing and cross-language activation in bilinguals are discussed.

Returns to education and gender gap

The Italian gender wage gap is related to a gap in returns to education which causes a sizable glass ceiling effect. The gap is detected by quantile regressions implemented in different subsets. Quantile regressions allow computation of both the average gap and the divergence in the tails of the wage distribution. Comparison of the equations estimated separately for men and women, reveals a divergence in wage determinants for the average and for all quantiles. The statistical relevance of this divergence is verified by a test of changing coefficients. By repeatedly implementing this test to compare subsets of different regions, cohorts, and education levels, it is possible to rank the factors affecting the gap and to pinpoint at which quantile their impact is greater. Gender turns out to be a relevant source of changes to the coefficients, particularly for the top quantiles, and the regional variable interacts with the returns to education gap, determining a sizeable glass ceiling on southern women’s careers.

Medical Treatment of Subjects with Gender Identity Disorder: The Experience in an Italian Public Health Center

ABSTRACTHormonal treatment is the main element during the transition program for transpeople. The aim of this paper is to describe the care and treatment of subjects, highlighting both the endocrine-metabolic effects of the hormonal therapy and the quality of life during the first year of cross-sex therapy in an Italian gender team. We studied 83 subjects (56 male-to-female [MtF], 27 female-to-male [FtM]) with hematological and hormonal evaluations every 3 months during the first year of hormonal therapy. MtF persons were treated with 17βestradiol and antiandrogens (cyproterone acetate, spironolactone, dutasteride); FtM persons were treated with transdermal or intramuscular testosterone. The WHO Quality of Life questionnaire was administered at the beginning and 1 year later. Hormonal changes paralleled phenotype modifications with wide variability. Most of both MtF and FtM subjects reported a statistically significant improvement in body image (p < 0.05). In particular, MtF subjects reported a statistically significant improvement in the quality of their sexual life and in the general quality of life (p < 0.05) 1 year after treatment initiation. Cross-sex therapy seems to be free of major risks in healthy subjects under clinical supervision during the first year. Selected subjects show an optimal adaptation to hormone-induced neuropsychological modifications and satisfaction regarding general and sexual life.

Influence of sex on incidence of side effects in plaque psoriasis patients treated with cyclosporine. Preliminary results from the Italian observational GENDER ATTENTION study

Influence of sex on incidence of side effects in plaque psoriasis patients treated with cyclosporine. Preliminary results from the Italian observational GENDER ATTENTION study

ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY IN EYE-TRACKING

Eye-trackers are becoming increasingly widespread as a tool to investigate second language (L2) acquisition. Unfortunately, clear standards for methodology—including font size, font type, and placement of interest areas—are not yet available. Although many researchers stress the need for ecological validity—that is, the simulation of natural reading conditions—it may not be prudent to use such a design to investigate new directions in eye-tracking research, and particularly in research involving small lexical items such as articles. In this study, we examine whether two different screen layouts can lead to different results in an eye-tracking study on the L2 acquisition of Italian gender. The results of an experiment with an ecologically valid design are strikingly different than the results of an experiment with a design tailored to track eye movements to articles. We conclude that differences in screen layout can have significant effects on results and that it is crucial that researchers report screen layout information.

Open Forum: Legitimacy/Change/Power: Is a New Course in Italian Gender Studies Possible?

Open Forum: Legitimacy/Change/Power: Is a New Course in Italian Gender Studies Possible?

Italian Forms of Masculinity between Familism and Social Change

This article summarizes historical and emergent factors in the contemporary pluralization of Italian gender identities, specifically the current penetration of alternative models of masculinity more adaptive to contemporary social change. Highlighted is the tension between progressive social forces and familism. Familism encompasses a cultural value system involving strong attachment and loyalty to one’s family. This includes a strong reliance on family for material and emotional support. The article concludes with a discussion of good practices concerning men, as well as a brief reflection on the future of Italian gender studies.

Rising marital disruption in Italy and its correlates

Most of our knowledge on divorce pertains to the USA and northern Europe, while demographic studies from southern Europe are relatively scarce. Our study looks at this knowledge gap through an analysis of the correlates of marital instability in Italy.

From Margin to Centre: Recent Trends in Modern Italian Women's and Gender History

This article reviews the considerable progress that has been made in modern Italian women's and gender history over the last decade. It puts forward the argument that such history, whose roots lie primarily in the feminist movement of the 1970s, was until recently consigned to the margins of the historical establishment but is now beginning to make a much greater impact. The article looks at the richness of the current wave of new publications and the wide range of topics they cover but argues that in a number of areas the historiography is still somewhat uneven. It also suggests that there is a pressing need for works of synthesis to draw together the research that has been done to date.

Grammatical Gender Effects on Cognition: Implications for Language Learning and Language Use.

In 4 experiments, the authors addressed the mechanisms by which grammatical gender (in Italian and German) may come to affect meaning. In Experiments 1 (similarity judgments) and 2 (semantic substitution errors), the authors found Italian gender effects for animals but not for artifacts; Experiment 3 revealed no comparable effects in German. These results suggest that gender effects arise as a generalization from an established association between gender of nouns and sex of human referents, extending to nouns referring to sexuated entities. Across languages, such effects are found when the language allows for easy mapping between gender of nouns and sex of human referents (Italian) but not when the mapping is less transparent (German). A final experiment provided further constraints: These effects during processing arise at a lexical-semantic level rather than at a conceptual level.

Accuracy of body mass index in detecting an elevated alanine aminotransferase level in adolescents

Aim: We evaluated the accuracy of body mass index (BMI) in detecting an elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level in adolescents, taking into account the effects of gender, age, ethanol intake, hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections, and drug consumption.Subjects: A representative sample of 454 adolescents (11–17 years) from two cities in northern Italy was studied (the Dionysos Study).Methods: z-BMI was calculated as the z-score of BMI using national growth charts. Logistic regression was used to quantify the contribution of the variables of interest to an elevated ALT (>30 UL−1). Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated, and areas under receiver–operator characteristic curves (AUC) were used to evaluate accuracy.Results: An elevated ALT was detected in 21 adolescents (4.6%). Among the studied variables, only male gender (OR = 6.7, 95% CI 2.0–23.2) and z-BMI (OR = 2.1, 95% CI 1.4–3.2) were significant predictors of elevated ALT. The accuracy of the prediction was 0.69 (95% CI 0.59–0.79) for gender and 0.71 (95% CI 0.59–0.81) for z-BMI. By combining gender and z-BMI, the accuracy rose to 0.80 (95% CI 0.71–0.89).Conclusion: BMI is a good predictor of elevated ALT in Italian adolescents and gender adds to the accuracy of the prediction.

Is “Count” and “Mass” Information Available When the Noun Is Not? An Investigation of Tip of the Tongue States and Anomia

To use a word in a sentence requires speakers to access information such as the meaning of the word, its use in a sentence (i.e., its syntax), and its sound form. In this study we examine whether when speakers cannot retrieve the sound form of a word, they are nevertheless able to indicate its syntactic properties. More specifically, we investigated whether English speakers in a tip of the tongue state, and a brain-damaged speaker in an anomic state, could correctly guess whether target words are either “count nouns” (e.g.,an opinion) or “mass nouns” (e.g.,some knowledge) when they could not say them. Results showed that speakers can correctly guess syntactic features such as count and mass, extending previous results concerning grammatical gender in Italian. We discuss the implications for models of language production in which lexical retrieval includes two steps. The first step involves retrieval of a word's abstract representation, specifying meaning and syntax. The second step involves the retrieval of the sound pattern of the word. Additional evidence from slips of the tongue in Italian, Spanish, and German showing syntactic constraints on phonological errors is also presented.

Gender and lexical access in Italian.

Two new procedures were employed to investigate the effects of semantic and grammatical gender on lexical access in Italian and to investigate the interaction of gender with other factors that are known to influence lexical access in other languages. The gender-monitoring task requires a conscious decision about the gender of each noun, whereas the word repetition task does not require explicit attention to gender. In both tasks, single words are presented out of context, under speeded conditions. Both procedures proved to be sensitive indices of word recognition, with reaction times that are closely tied to the point at which words can be uniquely identified (although some processing before and after the uniqueness point was seen). In both tasks, reaction times were strongly affected by phonological factors (e.g., length, number of syllables, and presence of frication on the initial consonant). Phonological transparency of gender marking had a reliable effect on gender monitoring but had no effect on word repetition, suggesting that explicit attention to gender may be a factor affecting utilization of this phonological cue. Semantic factors (including semantic gender) had no effect on performance. Frequency and age of acquisition had very small effects when other factors were controlled. Implications for current models of lexical access are discussed, with special reference to the role of gender.