How Do Life Course Events Affect Paid and Unpaid Work of Italian Couples?

The paper analyzes the impact of life course events, and in particular of parenthood, on the paid and unpaid working activity of dual-earner couples in Italy. To this end, use is made of the Istat Multipurpose Panel Survey in the years 2003 and 2007. To correct misspecification due to unobserved variables, we adopt a Difference-in-Differences specification of simultaneous equations of market and domestic work supply. Our results show that the negative effect of transition to parenthood on female paid work supply is stronger than the positive effect of wages.