IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jopoec/v16y2003i3p525-554.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labour force participation and marital fertility of Italian women: The role of education

Author

Listed:
  • Massimiliano Bratti

Abstract

This paper uses data from the 1993 Survey of Household Income and Wealth conducted by the Bank of Italy in order to estimate a reduced form purist model of female marital fertility and labour force participation. It focuses in particular on the effect of formal education on both fertility and labour force participation, and accounts for the potential endogeneity of education. Our estimates show that increasing education up to the upper secondary level exerts ceteris paribus a positive effect on marital fertility at ages 21–39 and that highly educated women postpone fertility and have a higher labour market attachment. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2003

Suggested Citation

  • Massimiliano Bratti, 2003. "Labour force participation and marital fertility of Italian women: The role of education," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 16(3), pages 525-554, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:16:y:2003:i:3:p:525-554
    DOI: 10.1007/s00148-003-0142-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00148-003-0142-5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00148-003-0142-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kevin M. Murphy & Finis Welch, 1992. "The Structure of Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 285-326.
    2. Bloemen, Hans & Kalwij, Adriaan S., 2001. "Female labor market transitions and the timing of births: a simultaneous analysis of the effects of schooling," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(5), pages 593-620, December.
    3. David Shapiro & Frank Mott, 1979. "Labor supply behavior of prospective and new mothers," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 16(2), pages 199-208, May.
    4. Cigno, Alessandro & Ermisch, John, 1989. "A microeconomic analysis of the timing of births," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 737-760, April.
    5. Smith, Richard J & Blundell, Richard W, 1986. "An Exogeneity Test for a Simultaneous Equation Tobit Model with an Application to Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 679-685, May.
    6. Ermisch, John F, 1989. "Purchased Child Care, Optimal Family Size and Mother's Employment: Theory and Econometric Analysis," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 2(2), pages 79-102.
    7. David Lam & Suzanne Duryea, 1999. "Effects of Schooling on Fertility, Labor Supply, and Investments in Children, with Evidence from Brazil," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(1), pages 160-192.
    8. Barro, Robert J & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 541-563, July.
    9. Walker, James R, 1995. "The Effect of Public Policies on Recent Swedish Fertility Behavior," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 8(3), pages 223-251, August.
    10. Cigno, Alessandro & Rosati, Furio C., 1996. "Jointly determined saving and fertility behaviour: Theory, and estimates for Germany, Italy, UK and USA," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1561-1589, November.
    11. Browning, Martin, 1992. "Children and Household Economic Behavior," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1434-1475, September.
    12. M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), 1997. "Handbook of Population and Family Economics," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    13. Voram Ben-Porath, 1973. "Short-term fluctuations in fertility and economic activity in Israel," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 10(2), pages 185-204, May.
    14. David M. Blau & Alison P. Hagy, 1998. "The Demand for Quality in Child Care," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 104-146, February.
    15. Sander, William, 1992. "The effect of women's schooling on fertility," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 229-233, October.
    16. Daniela del Boca, 1999. "Participation and Fertility Behavior of Italian Women: The Role of Market Rigidities," CHILD Working Papers wp10_00, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    17. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Schultz, T Paul, 1985. "The Demand for and Supply of Births: Fertility and Its Life Cycle Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(5), pages 992-1015, December.
    18. Lee Lillard & Linda Waite, 1993. "A joint model of marital childbearing and marital disruption," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(4), pages 653-681, November.
    19. Parkman, Allen M, 1992. "Unilateral Divorce and the Labor-Force Participation Rate of Married Women, Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 671-678, June.
    20. Siv Gustafsson, 2001. "Optimal age at motherhood. Theoretical and empirical considerations on postponement of maternity in Europe," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 14(2), pages 225-247.
    21. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1992. "Collective Labor Supply and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 437-467, June.
    22. Pedro Mira & Namkee Ahn, 2002. "A note on the changing relationship between fertility and female employment rates in developed countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 667-682.
    23. Blackburn, McKinley L & Bloom, David E & Neumark, David, 1993. "Fertility Timing, Wages, and Human Capital," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 6(1), pages 1-30.
    24. Danziger, Leif & Neuman, Shoshana, 1989. "Intergenerational Effects on Fertility: Theory and Evidence from Israel," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 25-37.
    25. Di Tommaso, M.L. & Weeks, M., 2000. "Decision Structures and Discrete Choices: An Application to Labour Market Participation and Fertility," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0009, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    26. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, June.
    27. Lucchetti, Riccardo, 2002. "Inconsistency of naive GMM estimation for QR models with endogenous regressors," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 179-185, April.
    28. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Maria Chiuri, 2000. "Quality and Demand of Child Care and Female Labour Supply in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 14(1), pages 97-118, March.
    30. Weeks, M. & Orne, C., 1999. "The Statistical Relationship between Bivariate and Multinomial Choice Models," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 9912, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    31. De Tray, Dennis N, 1973. "Child Quality and the Demand for Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(2), pages 70-95, Part II, .
    32. Namkee Ahn & Pedro Mira, 1999. "A Note on the Changing Relationship Between Fertility and Female Employment Rates in Developed Countries," Working Papers wp1999_9903, CEMFI.
    33. Daniela Del Boca & Silvia Pasqua, 2002. "Labour market participation of mothers in Italy: facts, studies and public policies," CHILD Working Papers wp04_02, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    34. Ian Smith, 1997. "Explaining the Growth of Divorce in Great Britain," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 44(5), pages 519-543, November.
    35. World Bank, 2000. "World Development Indicators 2000," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13828.
    36. repec:bla:scotjp:v:44:y:1997:i:5:p:519-44 is not listed on IDEAS
    37. Daniela Del Boca & Marilena Locatelli & Silvia Pasqua, 2000. "Employment Decisions of Married Women: Evidence and Explanations," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 14(1), pages 35-52, March.
    38. Dex, Shirley & Joshi, Heather, 1999. "Careers and Motherhood: Policies for Compatibility," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 23(5), pages 641-659, September.
    39. Namkee Ahn & Pedro Mira, "undated". "A note on the changing relationship between fertility and female employment rates in developed countries," Working Papers 99-09, FEDEA.
    40. Lisa Barrow, 1999. "Child care costs and the return-to-work decisions of new mothers," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 23(Q IV), pages 42-55.
    41. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226740867 is not listed on IDEAS
    42. Grogger, Jeffrey, 1990. "A simple test for exogeneity in probit, logit, and poisson regression models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 329-332, August.
    43. Dagenais, Marcel G., 1999. "Inconsistency of a proposed nonlinear instrumental variables estimator for probit and logit models with endogenous regressors," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 19-21, April.
    44. Di Tommaso, Maria Laura, 1999. "A Trivariate Model of Participation, Fertility and Wages: The Italian Case," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 23(5), pages 623-640, September.
    45. Parkman, Allen M., 1998. "Why Are Married Women Working So Hard?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 41-49, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Sibilla Francesca DE PAOLI, 2010. "The effect of schooling on fertility, labor market participation and children’s outcomes, evidence from Ecuador," Departmental Working Papers 2010-30, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    2. Francesca Modena & Concetta Rondinelli & Fabio Sabatini, 2014. "Economic Insecurity and Fertility Intentions: The Case of Italy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S1), pages 233-255, May.
    3. Del Boca, Daniela & Pasqua, Silvia & Pronzato, Chiara D., 2004. "Why Are Fertility and Women's Employment Rates So Low in Italy? Lessons from France and the U.K," IZA Discussion Papers 1274, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Nicoletta Balbo & Francesco C. Billari & Melinda Mills, 2013. "Fertility in Advanced Societies: A Review of Research," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-38, February.
    5. Daniela Del Boca & Silvia Pasqua & Chiara Pronzato, 2004. "Employment and Fertility Decisions in Italy, France and the U.K," CHILD Working Papers wp08_04, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    6. Del Boca, Daniela & Locatelli, Marilena, 2006. "The Determinants of Motherhood and Work Status: A Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 2414, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Massimiliano Bratti & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2012. "The effect of delaying motherhood on the second childbirth in Europe," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 291-321, January.
    8. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    9. Matteo Picchio & Claudia Pigini & Stefano Staffolani & Alina Verashchagina, 2021. "If not now, when? The timing of childbirth and labor market outcomes," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(6), pages 663-685, September.
    10. Larry E. Jones & Michele Tertilt, 2006. "An Economic History of Fertility in the U.S.: 1826-1960," NBER Working Papers 12796, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Fort, Margherita, 2005. "Education and timing of births: evidence from a natural experiment in Italy," ISER Working Paper Series 2005-20, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    12. Cathal O'Donoghue & David Meredith & Eamon O'Shea, 2011. "Postponing maternity in Ireland," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 35(1), pages 59-84.
    13. Concetta Rondinelli & Arnstein Aassve & Francesco Billari, 2010. "Women´s wages and childbearing decisions: Evidence from Italy," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 22(19), pages 549-578.
    14. Martin Werding, 2014. "Children are costly, but raising them may pay," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 30(8), pages 253-276.
    15. Massimiliano Bratti & Laura Cavalli, 2014. "Delayed First Birth and New Mothers’ Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Biological Fertility Shocks," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 30(1), pages 35-63, February.
    16. Peng Yu, 2006. "Higher Education, the Bane of Fertility? An investigation with the HILDA Survey," CEPR Discussion Papers 512, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    17. Francesca Modena & Fabio Sabatini, 2012. "I would if I could: precarious employment and childbearing intentions in Italy," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 77-97, March.
    18. Hippolyte D'Albis & Angela Greulich & Grégory Ponthière, 2015. "AVOIR UN ENFANT PLUS TARD Enjeux sociodémographiques du report des naissances," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01298929, HAL.
    19. Francesca Marchetta & David E. Sahn, 2016. "The Role of Education and Family Background in Marriage, Childbearing, and Labor Market Participation in Senegal," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(2), pages 369-403.
    20. Rees, Ray & Scholz, Sebastian, 2010. "Optimal Fertility Decisions in a Life Cycle Model," Discussion Papers in Economics 11316, University of Munich, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; fertility; Italy; labour force participation; women; J13; J22;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:16:y:2003:i:3:p:525-554. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.