"How important is the gender difference in municipalities’ administration?" This is the title of SOSE's analysis published in the IV Report on Italian Municipalities realized by the Ca 'Foscari University. The Report will be presented on Thursday 16 September at 16:00, at Palazzo dei Trecento in Treviso within "Statisticall," the Statistics Festival organized by ISTAT. It is possible to register for the event through the form to download here and follow it live on Facebook through the link on the event website https://www.festivalstatistica.it/.

SOSE's contribution to the IV Ca 'Foscari Report aims to verify whether the municipalities' cost structure is correlated to the presence of women in the governance of public bodies, focusing on the period 2010-2016. Italian municipalities represent an interesting case study due to the significant increase of women in the administration over the last decade. However, full gender equality is far to achieve (in 2018, the gap in Italy was 26.7%).

The empirical analysis, based on both the sex of mayors and the share of women in the city council, showed that average municipalities' costs decreased significantly as the presence of women in the governance of public bodies increased. The evidence that women in key positions increase social well-being represents a significant contribution to the literature.

However, the results of the study represent only a preliminary phase. The next step will focus on consolidating these results extending the reference panel.

Valeria Bucci and Giancarlo Ferrara of the SOSE Department Research worked on the study together with Giuliano Resce of the Department of Economics at the University of Molise, a former research fellow at the same Research Department.