More female work, more children: the importance of this equation
More female work equals more children. It is precisely the higher proportion of women in work that sustained fertility in Central and Northern European countries in the 1990s, when Italy's fertility rate was in enormous decline, explains Letizia Mencarini, Professor of Demography at Bocconi. It is therefore important to be able to apply this equation in Italy as well, even more so during this pandemic period. In fact, the data show that, during this period, it was women who suffered the most from job loss and family workloads. At the same time, from the first surveys on births in the last two months of 2020 in 6 large Italian cities, the evidence is that fewer children were born (20% fewer in December). It is therefore necessary to invest in female labor to maintain high fertility.