SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research at DIW BerlinThis series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences:

Early Child Care and Child Outcomes: The Role of Grandparents *In this paper, we focus on the impact of early grandparents' care on child cognitive outcomes, in the short and medium term, using data from the Millennium Cohort Study (UK). Compared with children looked after in a formal care centre, children cared by grandparents (as well as parents) are better in naming objects, but worse in tests concerning basic concepts development, problem-solving, mathematical concepts and constructing ability. In order to assess a causal link between early care and child outcomes, we employ panel methods and instrumental variables techniques that confirm that grandparental care matters more for naming ability while formal care is more important for problem-solving ability and basic concepts development. These results hide strong heterogeneities: on the one hand, the positive association between grandparents' care and child outcomes is stronger for children in more advantaged households; on the other hand, the negative association is significant only for children in more disadvantaged households.

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.

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This paper investigates the gender and ethnic wage differentials for female migrants in Italy by applying the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, with and without Heckman correction, to account for self‐selection into the labour market. The gender wage gap is nearly 15 per cent, more than 60 per cent of which is unexplained by observable differences. The ethnic wage gap is much larger (39 per cent), but endowments explain 53 per cent of the gap. We also estimate the double‐negative effect of being both female and a migrant. A female migrant earns 42 per cent less than an Italian male; the unexplained component is estimated to be 53–65 per cent. Results are robust to different specifications.

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The paper investigates the wage assimilation of foreign immigrants and internal migrants in Italy, comparing them with stayers. Control for selection in out-migration is performed using a new duration version of the Heckman correction and taking into account both return migration and moves to other destinations. Internal migrants experience only minor wage differences when compared with stayers. By contrast, foreign immigrants earn about 8% less than stayers and internal migrants at the beginning of their careers, and the wage gap increases over time. Both language distance and job segmentation contribute to immigrants' lack of wage assimilation.

This article estimates the effect of school closures in the spring of 2020 on the math skills of primary school children in Italy, which was the first Western country hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, responding with a strict lockdown and total school closures through the end of the school year. Leveraging unique longitudinal data collected in the province of Torino, a large metropolitan area in northern Italy, we analyse the learning outcomes of two adjacent cohorts of pupils, the pre-Covid and the Covid cohort. The pandemic had a large mean negative impact on pupils’ performance in mathematics (−0.19 standard deviations). Learning loss was greater for girls and for high-achieving children of low-educated parents. Net of individual characteristics, the impact was harshest in schools with a disadvantaged social composition.