Gender roles and fertility intentions in Italy

In this paper we use the most recent survey data from the 2016 Family, Social Subjects and Life Cycle (FSS) to test the GR theory by examining whether the unequal division of housework leads to lower fertility intentions. Our analyses look at couples, with or without children, aged 20- 45, resulting in a sample of 3231 cases. We also build composite indexes of housework burden. Our results confirm that positive fertility intentions diminish with the domestic burden of women, but also give some interesting insights when distinguishing by parity, either by the number and the gender of children of the couple.