Ricerc@Sapienza

Is the economic crisis reducing time for paid work? How do Italians use their eventual forgone market-working hours? Is household production increasing its relevance as a market-substitute in times of economic hardship? Is the economic crisis affecting negatively gender equality and favouring a return of backward-looking gender contracts? This paper stems on Italian time use data for three years before, during and after the beginning of the economic hardship (2002/3, 2008/9 and 2013/4) to answer these questions.

In this article we briefly recount the experience of inGenere since its foundation, as well as its goals and achievements against a backdrop of media communication lacking a gender perspective, especially in economics. We then consider the specific contribution of inGenere to the analysis of the gendered impact of the economic crisis and how to design and implement policy in a gender-sensitive manner from this experience.

The financial and economic crisis, associated with the longest and deepest recession since the end of World War II, broke out in the United States during the second half of 2007, and then spread to the entire world economy; Europe was hit in 2008. Data on industrial production and GDP documented a rapid and large fall in economic activity.
In spite of some encouraging signs of an inversion of the economic cycle during the second half of 2009 and the first half of 2010, the strength of the recovery was moderate and considerably varying among EuroArea countries.

The book aims at being an opportunity for further insights and discussions among the real-world decision makers, stakeholders and scholars, in order to stimulate ideas and reflections on which the debate, the future research and the consequent applications can be addressed.