IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/28534.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An investigation of the relation between the number of children and education in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Aldieri, Luigi
  • Vinci, Concetto Paolo

Abstract

In this paper we have investigated the impact of the level of education on the number of children in Italy. We have selected 1,490 families from the 1997- 2005 Longitudinal Investigation on Italian Families (ILFI) dataset. Our dependent variable is represented by the number of children ever born to each respondent (and to his partner). Since the number of children ever born (CEB) is a count variable, we have implemented three empirical models: Poisson, Zero-Truncated Poisson and an Instrumental Variable Poisson, where grandparents’ education is exerted as an instrument of parents’ education. In particular, we have considered two stages for each model: in the first stage, we have estimated the impact of female’s education on her number of children, and in the second one, we have used also partner’s education to identify the previous effect. From the empirical results, we may observe a significant negative effect of the level of education on the number of children.

Suggested Citation

  • Aldieri, Luigi & Vinci, Concetto Paolo, 2010. "An investigation of the relation between the number of children and education in Italy," MPRA Paper 28534, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:28534
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/28534/1/MPRA_paper_28534.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1976. "Child Endowments and the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 143-162, August.
    2. Daniela Del Boca, 2002. "The effect of child care and part time opportunities on participation and fertility decisions in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(3), pages 549-573.
    3. Becker, Gary S, 1981. "Altruism in the Family and Selfishness in the Market Place," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 48(189), pages 1-15, February.
    4. Daniela Del Boca & Silvia Pasqua & Chiara Pronzato, 2004. "Employment and Fertility Decisions in Italy, France and the U.K," CHILD Working Papers wp08_04, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    5. Ronald Rindfuss & S. Morgan & Kate Offutt, 1996. "Education and the changing age pattern of American fertility: 1963–1989," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 33(3), pages 277-290, August.
    6. Austin Nichols, 2007. "Causal inference with observational data: Regression Discontinuity and related methods in Stata," North American Stata Users' Group Meetings 2007 2, Stata Users Group.
    7. Anita Ratcliffe & Sarah Smith, 2006. "Fertility and Women’s Education in the UK: A Cohort Analysis," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 07/165, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    8. Luigi Aldieri & Adriana Barone & Concetto Paolo Vinci, 2006. "Human capital and fertility decisions in Italy: a microeconometric analysis of ECHP data," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 49(4), pages 281-292.
    9. Jan M. Hoem & Alexia Prskawetz & Gerda R. Neyer, 2001. "Autonomy or conservative adjustment? The effect of public policies and educational attainment on third births in Austria," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2001-016, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    10. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Austin Nichols, 2007. "Causal inference with observational data," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(4), pages 507-541, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aldieri, Luigi & Vinci, Concetto Paolo, 2011. "Education and fertility: an investigation on Italian families," MPRA Paper 31392, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Luigi Aldieri & Concetto Paolo Vinci, 2012. "Education and fertility: an investigation into Italian families," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 39(4), pages 254-236, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. J. Gimenez-Nadal & Jose Molina, 2013. "Parents’ education as a determinant of educational childcare time," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 719-749, April.
    2. Eric Schuss & Mohammed Azaouagh, 2023. "The expansion of early childcare and transitions to first and second birth in Germany," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 476-507, April.
    3. Arindam Nandi & Ramanan Laxminarayan, 2016. "The unintended effects of cash transfers on fertility: evidence from the Safe Motherhood Scheme in India," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 457-491, April.
    4. Eibich, Peter & Siedler, Thomas, 2020. "Retirement, intergenerational time transfers, and fertility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    5. Arindam Nandi & Ramanan Laxminarayan, 2016. "The unintended effects of cash transfers on fertility: evidence from the Safe Motherhood Scheme in India," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 457-491, April.
    6. Reich, Nora, 2008. "Das Bundeselterngeld- und Elternzeitgesetz in Deutschland: Analyse potenzieller Effekte auf Geburtenzahl und Fertilitätsstruktur," HWWI Policy Papers 1-10, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    7. Qin, Xuezheng & Zhuang, Castiel Chen & Yang, Rudai, 2017. "Does the one-child policy improve children's human capital in urban China? A regression discontinuity design," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 287-303.
    8. Okada, Keisuke, 2012. "The effects of female HIV/AIDS status on fertility and child health in Cambodia," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 560-570.
    9. Baudin, Thomas, 2010. "A Role For Cultural Transmission In Fertility Transitions," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 454-481, September.
    10. Sascha Becker & Francesco Cinnirella & Ludger Woessmann, 2010. "The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 177-204, September.
    11. Martin Dribe & Jonas Helgertz & Bart van de Putte, 2012. "Intergenerational social mobility during modernisation: a micro-level study of a community in southern Sweden 1830-1968," Working Papers 12013, Economic History Society.
    12. Humlum, Maria Knoth & Kristoffersen, Jannie H.G. & Vejlin, Rune, 2017. "College admissions decisions, educational outcomes, and family formation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 215-230.
    13. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2009. "How large are returns to schooling? Hint: Money isn't everything," NBER Working Papers 15339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Thomas Baudin, 2011. "Family Policies: What Does the Standard Endogenous Fertility Model Tell Us?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(4), pages 555-593, August.
    15. Åslund, Olof & Grönqvist, Hans, 2010. "Family size and child outcomes: Is there really no trade-off?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 130-139, January.
    16. Kieron Barclay & Torkild Lyngstad & Dalton Conley, 2018. "The Production of Inequalities within Families and Across Generations: The Intergenerational Effects of Birth Order and Family Size on Educational Attainment," NBER Working Papers 24530, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Sunde, Uwe & Cervellati, Matteo, 2007. "Human Capital, Mortality and Fertility: A Unified Theory of the Economic and Demographic Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 6384, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Briole, Simon & Le Forner, Hélène & Lepinteur, Anthony, 2020. "Children’s socio-emotional skills: Is there a quantity–quality trade-off?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    19. Nicoletta Balbo & Francesco C. Billari & Melinda Mills, 2013. "Fertility in Advanced Societies: A Review of Research," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-38, February.
    20. de Haan, Monique, 2010. "Birth order, family size and educational attainment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 576-588, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fertility; Human Capital; Education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:28534. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.