Publications:
"Home vs. Nursing Care: Unpacking the Impact on Health and Well-Being'', E. Bassoli, M.Lefebvre and J.Schoenmaeckers (2025), Social Science and Medicine DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118533
"How Gender Norms Shape the Health of Women and Men?" , Elena Bassoli (2025) Social Science and Medicine, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118479
"Unequal care provision: Evidence from the SHARE-Corona Survey", with A. Brugiavini, (2024) Review of Economics of the Household . DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-024-09716-7
"End-of-life Care and Depression" with E.Bonsang, A. Brugiavini and G. Pasini (2023) Applied Economic Letters DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2022.2099516 (media coverage: here)
"An Empirical Analysis of Health-Dependent Utility on SHARE and ELSA data", Elena Bassoli, (2022) Italian Economic Journal . https://doi.org/10.1007/s40797-022-00208-0
"Changing Attitudes to Risk at Older Ages : The role of health and other life events" with J. Banks and I. Mammi (2020) Journal of Economic Psychology DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2019.102208 (blog post: here)
Chapters in books:
“Disease Prevalence Across Europe: New Evidence from SHARE“ with Agar Brugiavini and Giacomo Pasini, in "The Sustenability of Health Care Systems in Europe" by B. Baltagi and F. Moscone, (2021) Emerald Publishing (also blog post here)
``Did the pandemic change retirement trends?" with Belloni M., Brugiavini A., Gao Y., (2023) In ``Social, health, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the epidemiological control measures", De Gruyter
Working Papers:
"What is the monetary cost of dementia in Europe?", with A. Brugiavini and L.Carrino (2024) [UNDER REVIEW]
This paper provides new evidence on the cost of long-term care for individuals and society by looking at the onset of dementia in a population of older individuals aged 50 and above. By exploiting the Survey of Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing (ELSA), we causally assess how a dementia shock affects commodities purchases and other domains of individual's life, in the short-run. We find that individuals reduce food consumption and increase rent and housing-related expenditures. We show that the demand for care is also affected, with an increase in both hospital, formal and informal care. Results are robust to alternative definitions of the shock and sensitivity analyses. Additionally, we discover spill-over effects on the spouse's well-being when the partner becomes sick. Finally, we compute the financial burden on individuals following a dementia diagnosis in terms of formal and informal care costs.
"The mental health consequences of spousal bereavement", joint with Emma Zai (Rostock Max Planck Institute) and Peter Eibich (Paris Dauphine) [UNDER REVIEW]
We examine the dynamic effects of the loss of a spouse on mental health. We use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for 28 European countries over the period 2004-2022 and estimate event study regressions to examine how individuals’ mental health changes over the transition into widowhood. We find no evidence of changes in mental health before the death of a spouse due to anticipation or caregiving effects. Bereaved individuals experience up to 1.5 additional depressive symptoms and their risk of depression increases by around 20 percentage points, with similar effects for men and women. Individuals adapt relatively quickly and their risk of depression reverts to baseline levels within 3 years of the death. We provide suggestive evidence that this adaptation is in part due to increased rates of social participation. We also find some evidence that the impact on mental health is stronger for individuals living in Eastern Europe and in countries with strong family ties. In addition, individuals in countries with stronger family ties adapt less quickly.
"How raising the full retirement age affects women's early retirement choices: insights from the interaction of two policies", with Y. Brilli [UNDER REVIEW]
media: lavoce.info
This paper assesses how a reform that increased statutory retirement age from 60 to 64 years has changed the incentives for early retirement among women. In the Italian context that we consider, women can anticipate retirement after age 57, if they have obtained 35 years of contributions. By using Italian administrative data, the analysis employs a novel identification strategy based on a Differences-in-Differences design, in which assignment to treatment is estimated in a Regression Discontinuity setting. By comparing women who are eligible for the early retirement scheme before and after the reform, we find that those eligible retire earlier by about 2 months after the reform is implemented. We also find that women eligible for the early retirement scheme after the reform implementation receive a 900 Euros lower annuity compared to those not affected by the reform. This effect corresponds to a 5% lifetime reduction in annuity. The effects are stronger for women with low labor market attachment and without a college education.
Work in progress (all titles provisional) :
Pension Contribution-Benefit Link and Gender Pension Gap, with Han Ye and Chiara Malavasi