By Paolo Consolini
Full text of the 6/2023 issue (In Italian)
This work provides an example of how it is possible to enrich and fill the information gaps in official statistics through the experimental use of new data sources. The case study analysed here refers to social benefits for maternity and childcare, or in other words those interventions provided by the government to protect the family by supporting the loss of earnings resulting from the period of absence from work for childbirth and parental leave.
In particular, we focus on those interventions aimed at the employees of the private sector for which admin data (INPS sources) is available. The solution adopted in the It-Silc project, i.e. combining the data from the collection of survey data with the administrative register on this issue, is therefore embedded within a logical framework. The latter starts from the conceptual definition of the phenomenon, develops through the study of the related sources (metadata), and the identification of the most appropriate calculation criteria, and ends with the empirical verification of the validity of the results compared to official macro-data (benchmark).
The experimental use of new data sources is carried out through an incremental cycle, where the knowledge of the phenomenon, based on existing sources, is increasingly enriched with new content, allowing improvements in the quality and granularity of the information.