Fertility choices and career breaks after childbirth in Italy: The role of economic constraints and social norms

Journal title QUADERNI DI ECONOMIA DEL LAVORO
Author/s Debora Di Gioacchino, Emanuela Ghignoni, Alina Verashchagina
Publishing Year 2020 Issue 2019/110
Language Italian Pages 18 P. 93-110 File size 214 KB
DOI 10.3280/QUA2019-110005
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Italy is characterised by both a low level of female participation in the labour market and a low fertility rate. At the same time, many women stay out of the la-bour market after the childbirth for a much longer period of time than the com-pulsory maternity leave prescribes. This way, they put at risk the possibility of re-entering the labour market after the career break, as well as damage their future career opportunities. In this paper we use a two-stage estimation process to ana-lyse the factors that influence the choice of having children first and then the choice of the period of time to devote to raising them out of the labour market. In particular, we focus on the role of factors hitherto neglected by the literature, such as prevailing local social norms and women’s reproductive health. The re-sults show that economic constraints do not have a strong impact on fertility choices (which seem to be more influenced by individual preferences and social norms), but significantly influence the length of the maternity period. The worsen-ing of women’s reproductive health, also due to the increase in the average age at childbirth, seems to significantly lengthen the period of time spent out of the la-bour market after the childbirth.

Keywords: Fertility, maternity leaves, female work, social norms

  1. Aaronson D., Lange F. e Mazumder B. (2014). Fertility Transitions along the Extensive and Intensive Margins. American Economic Review, 104(11): 3701-24.
  2. Adda J., Dustmann C., Stevens K. (2017). The career costs of children. Journal of Political Economy, 125(2): 293-337.
  3. Alesina A., Giuliano P. (2010). The power of the family. Journal of Economic Growth, 15: 93-125.
  4. Avendano M., Berkman L.F., Brugiavini A., Pasini G. (2015). The long-run effect of maternity leave benefits on mental health: Evidence from European countries. Social Science & Medicine, 132: 45-53.
  5. Bar M. et al. (2017). Is the market pronatalist? Inequality, differential fertility, and growth revisited. CEPR Discussion Paper n. 12376.
  6. Barigozzi F., Cremer H. e Roeder K. (2017). Women’s Career Choices, Social Norms and Child Care Policies. IZA Discussion Paper n. 10502.
  7. Baudin T, de la Croix D. e Gobbi P.E. (2017). Endogenous Childlessness and Stages of Development. CEPR Discussion Paper n. 12071.
  8. Begall K. e Grunow D. (2015). Labour force transitions around first childbirth in the Netherlands. European Sociological Review 12.
  9. Bettio F., Tinios P. e Betti G. (2013). The Gender Gap in Pensions in the EU. European Commission.
  10. Blau F.D. e Kahn L.M. (2016). The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations. IZA Discussion Paper n. 9656.
  11. Blau F.D. e Robins P.K. (1988). Child-Care Costs and Family Labor Supply. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 70(3): 374-381.
  12. Boeri T., Del Boca D., Pissarides C., a cura di (2005). Women at work. An economic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  13. Bratti M. (2003). Labour force participation and marital fertility of Italian women: The role of education. Journal of Population Economics, 16: 525-554.
  14. Bratti M., Del Bono E., Vuri D. (2005). New mothers’ labour force participation in Italy: The role of job characteristics. Labour 19: 79-121.
  15. Casadio P., Lo Conte M. e Neri A. (2008). Balancing work and family in Italy: New mothers’ employment decisions after childbirth. Bank of Italy Working Papers 684.
  16. Del Boca D., Pronzato C., Sorrenti G. (2016). When rationing plays a role: selection criteria in the Italian early child care system. CESifo Economic Studies, 62(4): 752-775.
  17. Del Boca D., Monfardini C. e Nicoletti C. (2017). Parental and Child Time Investments and the Cognitive Development of Adolescents. Journal of Labor Economics, 35(2): 565-608.
  18. Del Bono E., Francesconi M., Kelly Y. e Sacker A. (2016). Early Maternal Time Investment and Early Child Outcomes. The Economic Journal, 126(596): F96-F135.
  19. Eckstein Z., Lifshitz O. (2011). Dynamic Female Labor Supply. Econometrica, 79(6): 1675-1726.
  20. Fort M., Ichino A., Zanella G. (2017). Cognitive and non-cognitive costs of daycare 0-2 for children in advantaged families. Working paper Child Care & Early Education-Research -- Connections: -- testo dosponibile al sito: https://www.researchconnections.org/childcare/resources/35529#.
  21. Farré L., Vella F. (2013). The Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Role Attitudes and its Implications for Female Labour Force Participation. Economica 80: 219-247.
  22. Fernández R., Fogli A., Olivetti C. (2004). Mothers and Sons: Preference Formation and Female Labor Force Dynamics. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119(4): 1249-1299.
  23. Ghignoni E., (2016). The great escape from Italian Universities: Do labour market recruitment channels matter? Quaderni di Economia del Lavoro, 106(2): 49-75.
  24. Ghignoni E., Verashchagina A. (2016). Added worker effect during the Great Recession: evidence from Italy. International Journal of Manpower, 37(8): 1264-1285.
  25. ISTAT (2014). Avere figli in Italia negli anni 2000. approfondimenti dalle indagini campionarie sulle nascite e sulle madri.
  26. ISTAT (2017). Natalità e fecondità della popolazione residente.
  27. Lalive R., Zweimüller J. (2009). How Does Parental Leave Affect Fertility and Return to Work? Evidence from Two Natural Experiments. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(3): 1363-1402.
  28. Kuhlenkasper T., Kauermann G. (2010). Duration of maternity leave in Germany: A case study of nonparametric hazard models and penalized splines. Labour Economics 17: 466-473.
  29. Macran S., Joshi H., Dex S. (1996). Employment after childbearing: A Survival Analysis. Work, Employment&Society 10(2): 273-296.
  30. Martino E.M. (2017). The Labor Cost of Motherhood: Is a Shorter Leave Helpful? WorkINPS Paper 9/2017.
  31. McGinn K.L., Lingo E.L., Ruiz Castro M. (2015). Mums the word! Cross-national effects of maternal employment on gender inequalities at work and at home. HBS Working paper n. 15-094. Boston (MA): Harvard Business School.
  32. Nicodemo C., Waldmann R. (2009). Child-Care and Participation in the Labor Market for Married Women in Mediterranean Countries. IZA Discussion Paper n. 3983.
  33. Pacelli L., Pasqua S., Villosio C. (2013). Labour market penalties for mothers in Italy. Journal of Labor Researches 34: 408-432.
  34. Pastore F., Tenaglia S. (2013). Ora et non Labora? A Test of the Impact of Religion on Female Labor Supply. IZA Discussion Paper n. 7356.
  35. Picchio M., Pigini C., Staffolani S., Verashchagina A. (2018). If not now, when? The timing of childbirth and labour market outcomes. UPM Working Paper n. 425. Università Politecnica delle Marche.
  36. Pritchett L., Viarengo M. (2012). Why demographic suicide? The puzzles of European fertility. Population and Development Review 38: 55-71.
  37. Roodman D. (2009). Estimating fully observed recursive mixed-process models with cmp. CGDEV working paper n. 168.

Debora Di Gioacchino, Emanuela Ghignoni, Alina Verashchagina, Le scelte di fertilità e la durata della maternità in Italia: vincoli economici e norme sociali in "QUADERNI DI ECONOMIA DEL LAVORO" 110/2019, pp 93-110, DOI: 10.3280/QUA2019-110005