Career break around childbirth: the role of individual preferences and social norms

The prolonged career break around childbirth is one of the reasons behind large motherhood penalties in terms of pay and employment opportunities. We aim to understand what is driving the duration of career break in Italy, where it often remains longer than the five-month obligatory maternity leave. The theoretical model proposed describes trade-offs about career, fertility and time devoted to children, allowing for heterogeneity in women's education and preferences for parenting versus career. This preference is an individual characteristic which can be influenced by social norms and gender stereotypes. By relying on PLUS 2014 and 2021 surveys, we test model predictions and reveal an interesting shift: while a decade ago women characterised by higher parenting priority seemed to be more exposed to the risk of dropping out from the labour market, nowadays the desire to have kids appears to go side by side with the desire to maintain paid employment. We interpret this as a course for economic independence on the side of Italian women, especially the more educated, probably related to a shift in their priorities from parenting towards work and career. Further analysis is proposed to understand how the prevailing social norms and local characteristics could impact on career break and labour market participation.