Danilo Bolano

University of Florence | UNIFI · Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti" (DiSIA)

Modeling time series that present non-Gaussian features plays as central role in many fields, including finance, seismology, psychological, and life course studies. The Hidden Mixture Transition Distribution model is an answer to the complexity of such series. The observed heterogeneity can be induced by one or several latent factors, and each leve...

In this article we introduce the Rsocialdata package. This package provides re-searchers in social sciences with high-level tools for handling survey data in R. As a key feature it allows to store, document and share complex survey data, as panel data and network data. It provides tools for eciently exploring and recoding data, allowing researchers...

Background Disability does not simply affect the health status of the individual who directly experiences that condition, but it has important consequences on the health and well-being of the other family members as well. Focusing on Italy, an extremely interesting test-bed due to its strong familialist welfare regime, we show significant spillover...

This first section shows that the concept of the interdependency of life domains is of utmost importance. Typically, such interdependency is detected when decisions, events and transitions in one life domain influence those in another, producing spillover effects. Spillovers across life domains take the form of resources generated or drained by one...

This article marks the occasion of Social Science Research's 50th anniversary by reflecting on the progress of sequence analysis (SA) since its introduction into the social sciences four decades ago, with focuses on the developments of SA thus far in the social sciences and on its potential future directions. The application of SA in the social sci...

Older adults are at a high risk for loneliness, and community-based interventions can help reduce loneliness for all older adults in a community, regardless of their migration status. However, little research has investigated how older adults, including locals and migrants (in this case, internal newcomers and international expats) participate in t...

Background: The link between economic forces and family dynamics has received renewed attention in the present era of heightened uncertainty. Economic uncertainty has usually been linked to unfavorable labor market circumstances, such as unemployment and short-term contracts. Nonetheless, union formation may also be affected by subjective appraisal...

Critical events are occurrences that create turning points, disrupt individuals’ life courses and affect wellbeing. Here, we investigate how the co-occurrence of critical events and, in particular, the spacing in time of events across the life course influences life satisfaction in later life. We argue that life phases densely populated of critical...

Background: Studies investigating the correspondence of birth intentions and birth outcomes focus mainly on women's and men's intentions separately and disregard the fact that reproductive decision-making is dyadic. Objective: We examine the intention-outcome link for fertility taking a genuine couple-level approach. We aim to understand whether a...

Depression and psychological distress have high incidence rates among young people. Leisure is a known determinant of health and well-being and can help mitigate these phenomena through a variety of mechanisms. While it is known that sport and exercise provide benefits for neurological functioning, leisure has received less attention as a means of...

Depression and psychological distress have high incidence rates among young people. Leisure is a known determinant of health and well-being and can help mitigate these phenomena through a variety of mechanisms. While it is known that sport and exercise provide benefits for neurological functioning, leisure has received less attention as a means of...

This study cross-sectionally examined the associations among (i) leisure activities, (ii) social capital indicators of support from relatives and friends and (iii) depressed mood among a sample of 891 young adults born between 1988 and 1997 who grew up in Switzerland (LIVES Cohort Study). We identified a simplified structure of online (instrumental...

The present study adds to the growing literature on union formation in case of uncertainty by proposing an operational distinction between actual constraints and perceived uncertainty regarding the future. Using longitudinal data from 17 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, we empirically disentangle objective emp...

Background: Spousal loss is one of the most traumatic events an individual can experience. Studies on behavioral changes before and after this event are scarce. Objective: This study investigates gender differences in pathways of volunteering before and after transition to widowhood among older adults in the United States. Methods: We use longitudi...

This paper presents and discusses the use of a Mixture Transition Distribution-like model (MTD) to account for covariates in Markovian models. The MTD was introduced in 1985 by Raftery as an approximation of higher order Markov chains. In the MTD, each lag is estimated separately using an additive model, which introduces a kind of symmetrical relat...

Several studies have investigated the link between a previous trajectory and a given later-life outcome. Trajectories are complex objects. Identifying which aspects of the trajectories are relevant is of primary interest in terms both of prediction and testing specific theories. In this work, we propose an innovative approach based on data mining f...

In Australia and other affluent societies people tend to report a number of desired children which is clearly higher than the number of children they eventually bear. In the effort to explain such an inconsistency, demographers have studied the correlates of the link between pregnancy intentions and births. Drawing on data from the "Household Incom...

Objectives. We theorize and test the health of older adults as a result of their activity engagement, as well as a product of their spouse’s engagement. Method. We draw on 15 waves of couple-level data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. Using responses of time engaged in nine different activities, we estima...

In the literature pregnancy intentions are studied in isolation from intentions pertaining to other spheres of life. In this paper, we overcome this gap and investigate birth intentions and subsequent outcomes in a context of multiple life course domains encompassing partnership, education, work and residence. Using longitudinal data from the House...

Paper is forthcoming in Journal of Aging and Health Objectives: This study investigated the variability in Activities of Daily Living (ADL) trajectories among 6,155 nursing home residents using unique and rich observational data. Methods: The impairment in ADL performance was considered as a dynamic process in a multi-state framework. Using an inno...

This is an introduction on discrete-time Hidden Markov models (HMM)for longitudinal data analysis in population and life course studies. In the Marko-vian perspective, life trajectories are considered as the result of a stochastic processin which the probability of occurrence of a particular state or event depends on thesequence of states observed...

This is an introduction on discrete-time Hidden Markov models (HMM) for longitudinal data analysis in population and life course studies. In the Markovian perspective, life trajectories are considered as the result of a stochastic process in which the probability of occurrence of a particular state or event depends on the sequence of states observe...

p>This paper investigates the employment pathways of men and women in Australia and profiles the characteristics of individuals who are at risk of disadvantage defined by unstable employment histories and frequent transitions into unemployment. The paper focuses on the transitions of respondents, aged 15-64 years, between different employment state...

In this article we introduce the Rsocialdata package. This package provides researchers in social sciences with high-level tools for handling survey data in R. As a key feature it allows to store, document and share complex survey data, as panel data and network data. It provides tools for efficiently exploring and recoding data, allowing researche...