SEARCH RESULTS

The slow movements offer an alternative life project in comparison to the mainstream paradigm of homo faber and homo communicans, and criticize capitalism that appears in the form of a perverse mechanism capable of colonizing vital spaces of individuals, through the dissimulation of its own power. The «new spirit of capitalism» suggests that the stigma and criticism to which capitalism is subjected is what bring its ability to reproduce and renew itself. The following paper will analyze the specific ways in which slow movements have become important «narrative representations», revealing their deep connection with the «dominant grammar» of the capitalist matrix.

Among European countries, Italian couples show one of the widest gender gaps in housework division: Italian women still carry out three-quarters of family labour. Following the existing literature, this article focuses on three theoretical explanations of the persistence of the gendered division of unpaid work: time availability, relative resources, and conformity to traditional gender ideology. Time-Use data from the 2008/2009 Survey edition has been used to study the behaviour of Italian couples, married or living together, where the women are employed. The amount of time spent by men and women in domestic tasks has been modelled as function of several family characteristics and a Tobit model has been used in order to take into account the truncated nature of the dependent variables. Results show that the amount of time dedicated by women to housework significantly decreases when they take on the role of breadwinner, whereas the involvement in domestic tasks of male partners increases when they are unemployed. Therefore, in conformity with the expectations of relative resources’ hypothesis, Italian data shows a positive impact of the female financial capacity in reducing gender segregation in housework.

This study is developed within Vern L. Bengtson’s theoretical framework: the western modernization process causes changes to the family’s nuclear structure. One of these changes is the rise of vulnerability concerning two generations, the oldest and the youngest ones, which results in increased intergenerational dependency. This paper aims to determine whether this theoretical approach applies to Italy’s current scenarios. A secondary analysis was carried out on several indicators, including measures of vulnerability and intergenerational dependency. Effects of growing interdependence on the distribution of workload in families will be discussed. The data considered supports the validity of Bengtson’s theory.

In recent decades, the increase in life expectancy, changes in the labour market, and the economic and financial crisis have impaired the sustainability of pension systems in many developed countries. This has lead to the approval of reforms that modify pension systems in the direction of a reduction in the number and generosity of pension benefits, as well as a reduction of the length of the period of receipt. In Italy, given a particularly severe situation - enormous public debt, economic stagnation and demographic decline - a strict law was passed that radically reformed the Italian pension system. This study aims to describe the opinions of European citizens about aging and pensions, based on sets of heterogeneous national and international data (survey Aging, 2011, Eurobarometer surveys, 2001, 2004 and 2012), and to identify the reasons behind opinions that reject or accept the pension reforms.

The instructions given to interviewers in research institutes are often aimed at standardizing their behaviour, assuming that this can lead to comparable answers. However, in more recent methodological debates, the recognition of the interactional nature of the interview and the impossibility of standardizing the behaviour of interviewers has led scientists to call for a more flexible approach to how interview are conducted. This article presents the results of a study investigating the procedures put in place by the interviewers conducting telephone interviews and their compliance with the constraints of standardization. The results show strong deviations of the interviewers from the demands of researchers, only in some cases justified by the information obtained in the course of the interaction.