I Would if I Could: Precarious Employment and Childbearing Intentions in Italy

Francesca Modena and Fabio Sabatini

No 1013, Department of Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia

Abstract: This paper carries out an investigation into the socio-economic determinants of childbearing decisions made by couples in Italy. The analysis accounts for the characteristics of both possible parents. Our results do not support established theoretical predictions according to which the increase in the opportunity cost of motherhood connected to higher female labour participation is responsible for the fall in fertility. On the contrary, the instability of women�s work status (i.e. having occasional, precarious, and low-paid positions) is revealed as a significant dissuasive factor in the decision to have children. Couples in which there is an unemployed woman are less likely to plan childbearing as well. Other relevant explanatory variables are women�s age, men�s work status and education, women�s citizenship, marital status and perceived economic wellbeing.

Keywords: Fertility; family planning; parenthood; childbearing; participation; job instability; precarious employment; Italy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hrm, nep-lab, nep-ltv and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.unitn.it/files/download/8303/13_10.modenasabatini.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
Journal Article: I would if I could: precarious employment and childbearing intentions in Italy (2012)
Working Paper: I Would if I Could: Precarious Employment and Childbearing Intentions in Italy (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:trn:utwpde:1013

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department of Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Luciano Andreozzi (luciano.andreozzi@economia.unitn.it).