Parenthood and labour division in Italian two-earner couples

Maria Gabriella Campolo (), Antonino Di Pino and Ester Lucia Rizzi

International Journal of Social Economics, 2016, vol. 43, issue 12, 1315-1333

Abstract: Purpose - Lack of robustness of findings characterizes the empirical studies about the effect of the transition to parenthood on partners’ labour division. In this analysis, the purpose of this paper is to solve these problems through the conjoint use of methodological instruments of regression analysis, allowing the authors to correct for the effects of omitted variables. Design/methodology/approach - A correction method is here applied to a longitudinal simultaneous equation model. In particular, the authors impose specific constraints on the covariances of the error terms of the longitudinal simultaneous equations of the paid and domestic work of both partners. For the empirical analysis, use is made of the Italian National Institute of Statistics Multipurpose Panel Survey in the years 2003 and 2007 to select a survey sample of dual-earner Italian couples. Findings - The authors found that the negative influence of motherhood on the Italian women’s paid work supply is stronger than the positive effect of wage. The authors found that having a child (whatever the order) decreases a woman’s paid work hours by 17 hours a week, while woman’s domestic work increases by 20 hours a week as the effect of the birth of the first child. Originality/value - Compared to Fixed Effect or Change-Score models suggested for longitudinal studies the Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equations-Difference-in-Differences procedure let us obtain estimations also for the effect of time-invariant variables. In addition, the methodological approach allows us to correct estimates for the common effects that latent variables exert simultaneously (e.g. the bargaining process) on paid and unpaid work equations of both partners.

Keywords: Gender; Labour; Family; Parenthood transition; Difference-in-differences estimator; SURE model; Intra-household work allocation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
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:eme:ijsepp:ijse-12-2014-0248

DOI: 10.1108/IJSE-12-2014-0248

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Social Economics is currently edited by Professor Terence Garrett

More articles in International Journal of Social Economics from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().