FERTILITY DECISIONS AND EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION: THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF THE ITALIAN JOBS ACT

Maria De Paola (), Roberto Nisticò () and Vincenzo Scoppa ()

No 202003, Working Papers from Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF

Abstract: We study the effect of a reduction in employment protection on fertility decisions. Using data from the Italian Labor Force Survey for the years 2013-2018, we analyze how the propensity to have a child has been affected by the 2015 Labor Market Reform, the so-called “Jobs Act”, which has essentially reduced the employment protection for large-firm employees and leaved largely unchanged that for small-firm ones. We employ a Difference-in-Differences identification strategy and compare the average change over time in fertility decisions of women employed in large firms with the average change experienced by women employed in small firms. We find that women exposed to the reduction in employment protection have a 1.4 percentage point lower probability of having a child than unexposed women. A battery of robustness checks confirms this finding. We document large heterogeneous effects by marital status, parity, geographic areas as well as by the level of education and wage. Our findings help understand the potential unintended consequences that reforms introducing more labor market flexibility have on fertility decisions by increasing insecurity on career prospects.

Keywords: Fertility; Employment Protection Legislation; Labor Market Reform; Difference-inDifferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C31 J13 J41 J65 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2020-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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http://www.ecostat.unical.it/RePEc/WorkingPapers/WP03_2020.pdf First version, 2020-03 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Fertility Decisions and Employment Protection: The Unintended Consequences of the Italian Jobs Act (2021)
Working Paper: Fertility Decisions and Employment Protection: The Unintended Consequences of the Italian Jobs Act (2020)
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