Employment uncertainty and fertility

The relationship between employment uncertainty and fertility is a major topic in demographic research. Uncertainty is usually deemed to have a negative effect on fertility, but different fertility reactions are hypothesized by sociological theories, and micro-level evidence is fragmentary and contradictory. Furthermore, some topics are hardly explored. The thesis is composed of three studies. In the first one, we use meta-analytic techniques to synthesize European research findings and to offer general conclusions about the effects of employment uncertainty on fertility (in terms of direction and size) and to rank different sources of uncertainty. The second study adopts a comparative perspective, contributing to the empirical research on the fertility decline registered in many European countries in the aftermath of the Great Recession, specifically between natives and migrants, in Italy and Sweden. The third study focuses on Italy and analyse the relationship between employment uncertainty and both union formation and fertility, simultaneously. Our results suggest that employment uncertainty is detrimental for fertility. For men, being unemployed is more detrimental for fertility than having time-limited employment; for women, time-limited employment is the worst condition for fertility, while unemployment is often used as an opportunity window for having children. Furthermore, during the initial phase of the Great Recession, the probability of having a child decreased for migrants with unstable careers or low-skilled occupations more than for natives (with differences between Sweden and Italy). Finally, the thesis shows that it is fundamental to consider union formation and fertility as simultaneous processes, because employment uncertainty affects fertility also indirectly, through hampering union formation.