Does the Match Matches? The Effect of Employment Uncertainty on the Gender Difference between Real and Perceived Couples’ Fertility Intentions

Alessandra Minello, University of Florence
Daniele Vignoli, University of Florence
Federico Carli , University of Genua

The importance of recognizing the couple perspective in the analysis of fertility intentions is well- established in demography. Nonetheless, very often information from only one of the partners is collected. In this study, we refer to real intentions (a) as the combination of the woman’s and the man’s answers on their own fertility intentions. Perceived fertility intentions are either those of the woman (b) and obtained from the combination of her answers about her own and the male partner’s fertility intentions, or those of the man (c) and obtained from the combination of his answers about his own and the female partner’s fertility intentions. The literature still misses an empirical confirmation that real couples’ fertility intentions correspond to the perceived fertility intentions of the partners, and whether man’s or woman’s reporting on the partners’ fertility intentions is reliable. Using the EU-FER sample, that contains the information of self-declared (real) and partners’ (perceived) fertility intentions of both the members of the couple, this article looks at within couple real vs perceived fertility intentions. Moreover, the study is rooted in the current debate about the linkages between employment uncertainty and fertility. Hence, we additionally test whether gender-specific combinations of employment uncertainty within couples might shape the real and perceived couples’ fertility intentions declared by men and women differently.

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 Presented in Session 124. Fertility Intentions