This paper sets out to measure the “true” influence of partnering and fertility decisions on women’s participation in the labour market in Italy in 2002. Our model is rather complex for the following reasons. Firstly, because we consider several demographic processes, all of which are potentially affected by endogeneity (i.e. are in turn influenced by labour market decisions). Secondly because we use a cross sectional data source with retrospective questions, which calls into question two additional issues: selectivity and treatment effects. Selectivity arises because only a few, non-random individuals (women in our case) are observed in a given state (e.g. at work, or with children). Treatment effects arise because certain experiences of the past (e.g. having found a husband), may later put a woman on a different life course, which affects her approach towards family formation and labour participation.
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De Santis, G., Pino, A.D. (2009). Female Labour Participation with Concurrent Demographic Processes: An Estimation for Italy. In: Engelhardt, H., Kohler, HP., Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, A. (eds) Causal Analysis in Population Studies. The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9967-0_7
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