Female workforce participation and household expenditure for culture and recreation: macroeconomic evidence from the Italian regions

ABSTRACT

This study evaluates the effects of labour force participation on the share of private expenditure for cultural and recreational goods and services. We consider a panel of macroeconomic data, coming from the 20 Italian regions observed over the period 1995–2015. We document that female participation rate positively and significantly affects the share of household consumption devoted to culture and entertainment. The effect of male labour participation rate appears to be less clear-cut. We propose some theoretical and empirical considerations, to investigate the bases and the policy implications of such gender asymmetry.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural consumption
• Gender
• Labour force participation
• Regions

JEL Classification:

• C22
• R11
• Z11

Acknowledgments

We thank Luigi Bonaventura, Chiara Dalle Nogare, Luis Cesar Herrero Prieto, Elisabetta Lazzaro, Isidoro Mazza, Ilde Rizzo, along with an anonymous Referee for helpful comments. The responsibility for the content remains on the authors only.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest/competing interest to declare.

Notes

¹ A good is labelled as ‘normal’ if its demand increases with income; if the elasticity of the demand to income is larger than 1, the good is defined as a luxury good; hence, the share of income devoted to a luxury good increases with income.

² For instance, empirical evidence on family vacation decision process show that women work’s condition is one of the determinants that better explain the family vacation choices (Rojas-de-Garcia and Alarcòn-Urbistondo 2018).

³ In the present contribution we overlook the results from the large literature vein concerning the influence of ethnical factors on female labour participation (see, e.g. Fernandez 2007, 20013; Salari 2020), as they have a limited relevance on our points.

⁴ Interestingly, Muñiz, Rodríguez, and Suárez (2014), with reference to Spain, show that the elasticity of participation in sport and cultural activities with respect to non-labour income is less than 1 while the elasticity with respect to labour income is larger than 1; this is consistent with our point that participation in labour force is the relevant factor.

⁵ All data can be obtained by the Authors on request, in a single datafile. However, they are freely downloadable from the web; specifically:

(i) https://www.istat.it/storage/politiche-sviluppo/Beni_culturali.xls;

(ii) http://dati.istat.it/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=DCCV_TAXOCCU1;

(iii) http://dati.istat.it/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=DCCN_PILPRODT# (in our databank file, real per capita income is expressed in million Italian Lira, 1995).

⁶ In order to use appropriate instruments in the GMM estimation procedure, errors should not be AR(2) (Arellano and Bond 1991); this condition is met in all the models at hand. Again, the Sargan test on the implied restriction for instruments cannot reject the null of appropriateness.

⁷ Recent experimental evidence also suggests that women are more sensitive to socially and environmentally responsible consumptions, and more cooperative in contributing to them (Becchetti et al. 2018).

Additional information

Funding

Economic support from the PTR-2016-18 and PIACERI-2020 (internal university research funding programs) is acknowledged.