Events

Abstract: Across the European Union, approximately 4% of individuals under age 16 live with a disability, and over 15 million school-age children are identified as having special educational needs. Disabilities not only affect children's daily lives but also have far-reaching impacts on their families.

This talk examines how childhood disability affects the lives of parents, focusing in particular on employment trajectories of mothers and fathers. Using rich administrative data from Italy, we compare parents of children with and without disabilities. The findings reveal that having a child with a disability is associated with a substantial and statistically significant decline in parental labour income and labour market participation. These adverse effects are particularly pronounced for mothers, highlighting gendered patterns in caregiving.

The talk will then broaden the analysis beyond Italy, adopting a comparative international perspective to explore how institutional and cultural contexts shape the relationship between child disability and parental outcomes.

The Sociology Seminar Series for Trinity Term is convened by Jan O Jonsson, Ridhi Kashyap, Colin Mills and Christiaan Monden. For more information about this or any of the seminars in the series, please contact sociology.secretary@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.