Family, labour and fertility

Family, labour and fertility

Who cares about childcare? Evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic

Paola Profeta with A. Marchese and G. Savio

Key points:

  1. Compares public expenditures in Italian municipalities below 500 inhabitants run by a male and a female mayor
  2. Using close races gender mixed elections it shows that before the Covid-19 pandemic female mayors were spending more in childcare than male mayors
  3. However, during and after the pandemic this difference disappears, as men increase their spending in childcare
Family culture and childcare: Individual Preferences and Politicians’ Legislative Behavior

Paola Profeta with F. Carta and L. de Masi

Key points:

  1. Studies the role of family organization in shaping public provision of childcare
  2. US citizens with origins in countries characterized by egalitarian inheritance rules prefer a large childcare system, while those coming from large and cohabiting families rely less on the government and as a provider for external childcare
  3. Representatives of US districts where these backgrounds are dominant are respectively more and less prone to vote for childcare interventions, independently of their own background
family
Population ageing and the gender gap

Paola Profeta, in “Routledge Handbook on the Economics of Ageing” D. Bloom, A.Sousa Poza and U. Sunde (eds)

family
The impact of COVID on the gender division of domestic activities: evidence from two waves of the pandemic in Italy

Paola Profeta with D. Del Boca, N. Oggero, M.C. Rossi, IZA Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming