{"id":30823,"date":"2025-05-27T14:23:21","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T12:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irpet.it\/can-we-afford-a-child-the-positive-effect-of-his-and-her-income-on-first-births-evidence-from-longitudinal-tax-data-2003-2021\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T12:41:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:41:32","slug":"can-we-afford-a-child-the-positive-effect-of-his-and-her-income-on-first-births-evidence-from-longitudinal-tax-data-2003-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irpet.it\/en\/can-we-afford-a-child-the-positive-effect-of-his-and-her-income-on-first-births-evidence-from-longitudinal-tax-data-2003-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Can We Afford a Child? The Positive Effect of His and Her Income on First Births-Evidence from Longitudinal Tax Data, 2003-2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A working paper by Carlos J. Gil-Hern\u00e1ndez, Daniele Vignoli, Raffaele Guetto, Maria Luisa Maitino, and Letizia Ravagli entitled \u2018Can We Afford a Child? The Positive Effect of His and Her Income on First Births\u2014Evidence from Longitudinal Tax Data, 2003\u20132021\u2019 has been published.<\/p>\n\n<p>See <a href=\"https:\/\/labdisia.disia.unifi.it\/wp_disia\/2025\/wp_disia_2025_03.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Full Text<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.disia.unifi.it\/vp-108-pubblicazioni.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Elenco\u00a0Working\u00a0Papers\u00a0DISIA<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong>: This study adopts a dyadic approach to assess whether higher-income women experience lower fertility due to opportunity costs and conventional gender norms, or whether income pooling within couples facilitates parenthood. We test the well established gendered relationship between income and fertility in Italy, a country historically known for its division of family roles along traditional gender lines. Utilising longitudinal tax data (2003-2021; n=5,384,425 person-years) from Tuscany\u2014an Italian region representing average levels of economic development and gender equality in Europe\u2014we apply discrete-time event-history analyses. Results show that higher earnings for both men and women increase the likelihood of first birth, with couples in which both partners are high earners being the most likely to have children and low income couples the least likely. These findings challenge traditional sex-specialisation models and support the view that couples\u2019 income pooling is a key factor for parenthood.<br\/>While the positive income-fertility association remained stable for married couples, it grew stronger among single\/cohabiting individuals as of the late 2010s, suggesting that rising economic prerequisites to parenthood contribute to growing income inequality in fertility.<br\/><\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Keywords<\/strong>: Fertility, Assortative Mating, Income, Tax Data, Inequality, Couples, Italy<br\/><strong>Funding<\/strong>: This work was supported by cofunding from the European Union\u2013Next Generation EU, in the context of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Investment Partenariato Esteso PE8 \u201cConseguenze e sfide dell&#8217;invecchiamento,\u201d Project Age-It (Aging Well in an Aging Society, PE8-B83C22004800006).<\/p>\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Working Paper DISIA 2025\/03 by Carlos J. Gil-Hern\u00e1ndez, Daniele Vignoli, Raffaele Guetto, Maria Luisa Maitino and Letizia Ravagli<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":28296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1033],"tags":[1557,1558,1555,1556,1554],"staff":[960,966],"temi-pubblicazioni":[1015,968],"class_list":["post-30823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articoli-e-riviste-scientifiche","tag-couples-en","tag-fertility-en","tag-income-en","tag-inequality-en","tag-italy-en","staff-maria-luisa-maitino","staff-ravagli-letizia-en","temi-pubblicazioni-welfare-poverty-and-inequality","temi-pubblicazioni-work-en"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Can We Afford a Child? 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