Date:
Location:
"Self-Employment, Entrepreneurship, Gender and Fertility."
Speaker: Francesco Billari, Professor of Sociology and Demography, Fellow of Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Since the emergence of very low and lowest-low fertility, researchers have focused on the central role of the work-family nexus and of gender equality in shaping macro- and micro-level fertility outcomes. The role of self-employment and entrepreneurship – with high prevalence in some lowest-low fertility countries – has however been understudied, and macro and micro-level studies on self-employment and fertility have produced inconsistent findings. Self-employment and entrepreneurship are linked with income uncertainty and instability, and might therefore be negatively related to fertility. But they might also be linked with flexibility and higher potential income, and positively related to fertility. Mechanisms play out differently for men and women and for different types of self-employment. We analyze data from Italy’s Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) for 1995-2014 and show that overall, self-employed men and women have higher fertility than wage earners. We provide a test for reverse causality and an identification strategy based on an instrumental variable to discuss whether the relationship is causal. We show that heterogeneity in self-employment matters.
The seminar will be follow by a reception.
Contact:
Sarah Banse