Job instability and family planning: insights from the Italian puzzle

Fabio Sabatini

Department of Economics University of Siena from Department of Economics, University of Siena

Abstract: This paper carries out an investigation into the socio-economic determinants of couples’ childbearing decisions in Italy. Since having children is in most cases a “couple matter”, the analysis accounts for the characteristics of both the 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 the women’s work status (i.e. their being occasional, precarious, and low-paid workers) reveals to be a significant dissuasive deterrent discouraging the decision to have children. Couples with unemployed women are less likely to plan childbearing as well. Other relevant explanatory variables are current family size and the strength of family ties.

Keywords: Fertility; family planning; parenthood; childbearing; participation; job instability; labour precariousness; social capital; Italy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 J13 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://repec.deps.unisi.it/quaderni/584.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Job Instability and Family Planning: Insights from the Italian Puzzle (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:usi:wpaper:584

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department of Economics University of Siena from Department of Economics, University of Siena Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Fabrizio Becatti ().