Having Children in the Italian Regions: The Role of the Territorial Well-Being

Alessandra De Rose , Sapienza Università di Roma
Filomena Racioppi, Sapienza Università di Roma
Mariarita Sebastiani, Sapienza University of Rome

We analyze the association between reproductive behavior and well-being in the Italian regions, measured by the indicators of Equitable and Sustainable Well-being (BES). These indicators are collected by ISTAT since 2013 with the aim of evaluating the development of the society from an economic, social and environmental point of view, and give information on the overall citizens' life quality. Combining household data (Istat Daily Life Survey, 2017) with the aggregate information of BES at regional level, we analyze the logit of having one (more) child among women in reproductive age and currently in union in a multilevel framework, where the second level units are the Italian regions and second-level factors are the BES indicators measured in 2014-15, that is two-years lagged. We expect that women living in the regions performing better in terms of well-being conditions have higher odd of childbearing and that inequality in territorial well-being helps explaining the regional variability in fertility. Our preliminary results of the analysis performed at an aggregate level confirm the statistical association between the quality of life of citizens and the number of children they express, as well as a persistent geographical variability in the associations themselves suggesting that the regions with the higher well-being are also those where the individuals and the couples are favored in realizing their reproductive plans.

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 Presented in Session P1. Poster Session Fertility, Family and the Life Course