Modeling the Italian female labour market participation with infertility shocks

The negative association between fertility and female labour market participation is complicated by the endogeneity of fertility. We address this problem by using an exogenous variation in family size caused by infertility shocks, mainly related to the fact that nature prevents some women from achieving their desired fertility levels. Using the Bank of Italy’s SHIW we find that children do not causally affect the Italian
female involvement in the labour market. Results are confirmed exploiting the Istat Birth Survey, with insights of differentiated effects according to the age of the child.