Working Papers del DiSIA
Parental Separation and Its Impact on Childhood Vaccination: Evidence from Italy
Raffaele Guetto, Valentina Tocchioni, Maria Veronica Dorgali, Alice Dominici
Research on the effects of parental separation on children’s socioeconomic outcomes is extensive, yet little is known about how family disruptions impact adherence to vaccination schedules. This study addresses this gap by investigating the association between parental separation and children's vaccination coverage, using a unique dataset on Italian parents born between 1954 and 1983. A multinomial logistic regression model is used to assess the relationship between parental separation and adherence to the vaccination schedule, accounting for the child’s age at the time of parental break-up. Our results show that children who experience parental separation are less likely to receive all recommended vaccinations and are more likely to receive only mandatory vaccines or none at all. The negative effect is particularly pronounced for children who were younger at the time of separation. Given the rising incidence of family disruptions, these findings have important policy implications for improving vaccination uptake.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
The End of an Era. The Vanishing Negative Effect of Women’s Employment on Fertility
Anna Matysiak, Daniele Vignoli
This paper addresses whether women’s employment in the 21st century remains a barrier to family formation, as it was in the 1980s and 1990s, or—similar to men’s—it has become a prerequisite for childbearing. We address this question through a systematic quantitative review (meta-analysis) of empirical studies conducted in Europe, North America and Australia. We selected 94 studies published between 1990-2023 (N=572 effect sizes). Our analysis uncovers a fundamental shift in the relationship between women's employment and fertility. What was once a strongly negative association has become statistically insignificant in the 2000s and 2010s—and even turned positive in the Nordic countries and parts of Western Europe (France, Belgium, and the Netherlands). This shift is evident both among childless women and mothers and has occurred across all analyzed country clusters, except in the German/Southern European group, where the relationship has remained negative. These findings challenge longstanding assumptions about work-family trade-offs and suggest a reconfiguration of the economic and social conditions underpinning fertility decisions in contemporary high-income societies. The paper calls for a reconceptualization of the employment-fertility relationship and development of a new theoretical framework that better captures these evolving dynamics in contemporary high-income societies.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
Can We Afford a Child? The Positive Effect of His and Her Income on First Births—Evidence from Longitudinal Tax Data, 2003-2021
Carlos J. Gil-Hernández, Daniele Vignoli, Raffaele Guetto, Marialuisa Maitino, Letizia Ravagli
This study adopts a dyadic approach to assess whether higher-income women experience lower fertility due to opportunity costs and conventional gender norms, or whether income pooling within couples facilitates parenthood. We test the well-established gendered relationship between income and fertility in Italy, a country historically known for its division of family roles along traditional gender lines. Utilising longitudinal tax data (2003–2021; n=5,384,425 person-years) from Tuscany—an Italian region representing average levels of economic development and gender equality in Europe—we apply discrete-time event-history analyses. Results show that higher earnings for both men and women increase the likelihood of first birth, with couples in which both partners are high earners being the most likely to have children and low-income couples the least likely. These findings challenge traditional sex-specialisation models and support the view that couples’ income pooling is a key factor for parenthood. While the positive income-fertility association remained stable for married couples, it grew stronger among single/cohabiting individuals as of the late 2010s, suggesting that rising economic prerequisites to parenthood contribute to growing income inequality in fertility.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
Politiche sociali e fecondità in Italia. Una revisione della letteratura tra approcci pronatalisti e interventi strutturali.
Daniele Vignoli, Raffaele Guetto, Elisa Brini
Il perdurare di tassi di fecondità inferiori alla soglia di sostituzione, in un contesto di crescente longevità, pone l’Italia di fronte a sfide rilevanti per quanto riguarda la stabilità demografica, il funzionamento del mercato del lavoro e la sostenibilità del sistema di welfare. Il dibattito pubblico e politico tende spesso a semplificare questa cosiddetta “crisi demografica”, attribuendo il calo delle nascite tanto alla perdita dei valori familiari tradizionali quanto all’insufficienza degli incentivi economici a sostegno della natalità. Questo contributo sostiene che tali letture sono parziali e inadeguate, poichè non colgono le cause strutturali e istituzionali più profonde che ostacolano la realizzazione del potenziale riproduttivo della popolazione. Un potenziale che rimane in buona parte inespresso, come dimostra l’ampio divario esistente in Italia tra fecondità desiderata e realizzata, nonchè il crescente ricorso alle tecnologie di procreazione medicalmente assistita (PMA). Attraverso una rassegna critica degli studi esistenti, l’articolo analizza il rapporto tra politiche sociali e fecondità in Italia, contrapponendo due approcci: quello pronatalista, che interpreta il comportamento riproduttivo principalmente come espressione di scelte di coppia modellate da norme culturali, e quello strutturale, che pone al centro i vincoli e le opportunità inscritti nel più ampio contesto istituzionale, economico e sociale entro cui si costruiscono i percorsi di vita. L’evidenza empirica mostra che le misure pronataliste hanno scarsa efficacia in assenza di politiche più ampie che affrontino la sicurezza economica, la stabilità occupazionale, l’accesso alla casa, la parità di genere e la conciliazione tra lavoro e vita familiare. Nel dare alcune indicazioni per lo sviluppo di politiche pubbliche, sosteniamo che la promozione della fecondità non debba essere concepita come un imperativo demografico, bensì come un impegno a creare condizioni che permettano alle persone, soprattutto ai più giovani, di realizzare liberamente i propri progetti di vita, inclusa la scelta di avere figli.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
A research note on the increasing income prerequisites of parenthood. Country-specific or universal in Western Europe?
Elisa Brini, Raffaele Guetto, Daniele Vignoli
Traditional economic theories link male income to higher fertility and female income to increased opportunity costs. However, shifting gender roles and socio-economic changes challenge these assumptions, with evidence suggesting rising income prerequisites of parenthood in high-income countries. This research note examines the role of income in first childbirth for men and women from 2006 to 2020 across 16 Western European countries based on longitudinal data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and discrete-time logistic regressions. Results show that higher income consistently increases the transition to parenthood in all countries, with stronger effects for women. Over time, income has become a stronger predictor of parenthood. Widening fertility differentials across income groups are primarily driven by declining first-birth probabilities among lower-income men and women, supporting the hypothesis of increasing income prerequisites of parenthood. In four countries, the positive income effect for men weakens, which we interpret as a signal of changing gender roles. In one country, widening fertility differentials are driven by increasing fertility among high-income women, consistent with the argument of declining opportunity costs. Overall, findings suggest that the income prerequisites of parenthood have risen in high-income countries, strongly contributing to increasing income inequalities in fertility.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
Implicit pension debt in pay-as-you-go pension systems: the stationary and balanced case
Gustavo De Santis
This paper revisits the concept of the implicit pension debt (Ipd) in pay-as-you-go (Paygo) pension systems and proposes a few innovations. The first is the representation on a Lexis diagram of all the four versions of Ipd debated in the specialized literature: this greatly helps non-specialized readers to better understand their meaning and the interconnections between them. This framework leads to the second and most important original contribution of this paper. Under stationary and balanced demographic and economic conditions, Ipd can be expressed as the product of three factors: the average pension benefit (P), the number of pensioners (S), and the average age gap (D) between when contributions are paid and pensions are received. The proposed formula sheds new light on several aspects of Paygo systems, including the quasi-capital gains (losses) they are known to produce during expansion (contraction) phases. A brief discussion suggests that these findings and considerations apply, albeit only approximately, to a much broader range of cases than the stationary and balanced one examined here.
Finally, the Ipd concept indicates that Paygo systems would be substantially more resilient to demographic changes if they included also child benefits, and not only pensions. While such a transformation would arguably lead to an improvement in the long run, its realization is unlikely due to the high transition costs. In all cases, the proposed framework supports clearer diagnostics and better-informed policy responses to the challenges that demographic ageing and decline pose to pension systems.
Working Papers del Dipartimento
Ultimo aggiornamento 18 giugno 2025.