Leader: Letizia Mencarini (Università Bocconi); Other collaborator(s): UNICAL
Ageing starts at childbirth. We age differently, however. Across generations, gender, and countries, cultural norms shape perceptions of age and ageing throughout the life-course, and also behavior. High quality, representative longitudinal data on socio-demographic circumstances, individuals' health, resources and activity patterns (and their changes) are required as a basis for understating age, ageing and ageism. The substantive task here is to collect detailed data about individuals' life-courses, and thereby tie together life events across the life course. Special modules will be developed through the implementation of an Italian version of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS).
Brief description of the activities and of the intermediate results
Please see task 1. Collaboration with Manuela Stranges.
We draw the general line of a Comparative Survey on Fertility Intentions — Age Norms and the Cost of Children, together with task 1 (lead by Manuela Stranges). we aim to a sample size of 2,500 interviews for countries, Aged 20-49 yrs, with different level of education representative in terms of age and gender. The survey will be conducted among men and women in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, USA [countries characterized by different levels of low fertility, and ageing]. The survey will be conducted together with the Princeton University (Alicia Adsera).
The questionnaire of the Comparative Survey on Fertility Intentions have been completed. The questionnaire is divided in three parts: part 1 about Basic Demographic Questions; part 2 consists in a vignette experiment proposing 15 scenarios to each interviewees about cost of children, family income, parental household chores and time; part 3 is about Age Norm and Fertility Ideal/Desire/Plan.
It has been decided to implement a part of Italian GGS for over 60. Bocconi is already part of a “Joint Research Unit” together with CNR- IRPPS for the realization of the main Italian Generation and Gender Survey (18-59). The objective is collect data which will constitute the basis for understating age, ageing and ageism in Italy. A specific agreement between Age-it and the FOSSR project (sponsoring the main survey) has been drawn but not yet signed. The specific/additional questions for the GGS, beyond the GGS core questionnaire, will constitute a specific module for people above 50. 3000 interviews CAPI , 500 CAWI interviews are planned. GGS central hub will implement the questionnaire for BLAISE software. The survey company will receive the list of people to contact, will contact by letter the interviewees inviting to a push- to –web CAWI interviews. Once reached 500 interviews will continue with CAPI interview mode. The survey will be on the field in parallel with the Italian GGS, implemented for adult aged 18-49, starting on January 2025.
The Italian Generation and Gender survey has been tested with a long pilot phase in November and December. Both subsamples (18-59 sponsored by FOSSR project lead by CNR) and above 60 (sponsored by AGe-it) have been tested.
In consequence of the pilot the questionnaire has heavily been cut, maintaining the criteria of giving priorirty to the questions not only in the core questionnaire but also present in other countries. Several filters did not work, so the central hub at NIDI has restructured the Blaise version of the questionnaire. Other technical adjustment has been done to implement a better user-friendly version for the mobile phones. The survey is aiming to collect over 12,000 individuals and therefore the pilot phase is particularly important.
Regarding the comparative survey "FerAge" Fertility intentions and Age Norms, in collaboration with task 3.1 (prof. Stranges), we have contacted and give the commitment of a survey agency. The final questionnaire has been transcribed in Qualtrics and therefore will be tested in the next month.
Short presentations/papers (rational and questionnaire) of both the GGS survey on elderly and the Comparative Survey on Fertility Intentions have been submitted to severl conferences (2025 PAA, AISP, special seminar on gender at MPIDR, IUSSP and also specific research meeting of GGP network). We expected therefore in the next months to present the two pieces of research in scientific venues.