Reconciliation of work and family in a familialistic context

Cinzia Castagnaro, Instituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
Antonella Guarneri, Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)

Among the western countries, Italy shows the lowest levels of both the TFR and the female occupation. Yet the average desired number of children is still above two. The discrepancy is higher than in the other European countries. Moreover, the number of housewives with children who would like to work if this were compatible with their family duties is quite high: "In Italy traditional gender roles continue to influence labour market participation strongly” (OECD, 2006). In this paper we will analyse the impact of age and education asymmetry in the couple, the availability of childcare, the partner's employment, the partner involvement in the domestic work and childcare, the relative woman satisfaction level on the female employment continuity/discontinuity after the arrival of a child. To this purpose, we use recent data from a large-scale Italian survey on births carried out by Istat in 2002 and 2005.