Conference Agenda

Literature evidences that fertility intentions can be driven not only by the desiderated number of children, but rather by sex preferences. If previous studies traditionally focus on preference for son fueling progress to the third child, more recently the attention has been attracted by a new unexpected preference for daughter and on the crucial passage to the second child.

This paper gets an insight on sex preferences in a plurality of low fertility contexts to investigate whether such preference is in act toward son or daughter, how it varies by gender or socioeconomic individual background, by the composition of actual offspring, by country of residence, but also by the desired characteristics of the ideal child. Answers to the question: “If you could have only one child, would you prefer it to be a son or a daughter?” – collected in eight low-fertility countries by a web-survey in 2021- are analyzed.

Results confirm in some countries a marked son preference, in others a daughter one, while in a few it does not matter at all. Results from multinomial logit models evidence that the individual-level drivers of sex preference vary across countries, genders and sex of the first child.

This study examines the impact of Medically Assisted Reproduction (MAR) on fertility in Italy, a country with the latest average age at first birth in Europe. Despite the growing use of MAR in wealthy nations, no prior research has thoroughly investigated MAR's contribution to overall fertility in Italy. To fill this gap, the authors estimate MAR’s role in total and age-specific fertility rates by birth order, using two administrative data sources: the Birth Assistance Certificate dataset, managed by the Ministry of Health, and the live birth register from ISTAT, the Italian National Statistical Office. The study is especially timely, as the introduction of Essential Levels of Care (LEA) for MAR on December 1st, 2024, is expected to make these treatments more accessible.

This study examines the socially stratified risk of pregnancy loss in the Netherlands, focusing on how socio-economic status (SES) influences adverse outcomes such as miscarriage and stillbirth. Using Dutch register data, we analyze employment histories, income, and education of pregnant women and their partners to explore associations between SES and pregnancy loss.

Through a Linear Probability Model, we assess SES indicators while controlling for confounders like maternal age, parity, and prior pregnancy loss. Initial results suggest that low-SES women face cumulative disadvantages, while high-SES individuals are more affected by unexpected economic shocks.

The findings highlight SES as a significant determinant of pregnancy loss, offering insights into the interplay between economic stressors and maternal health. This research underscores the need for targeted interventions to support vulnerable groups, particularly in contexts like the Netherlands with strong welfare systems, contributing to policy discussions on mitigating socio-economic disparities in pregnancy outcomes.

A few studies (Jalovaara and Fasang, 2017; Tocchioni, 2018, 2022) have clearly shown that childlessness needs to be studied in relation to individuals’ life trajectories, considering the complete life sequence as a single unit of analysis (Billari, 2005). However, it remains unclear whether the growing complexity in individual life courses, particularly regarding relationship and career instability, contributes to the increase in childlessness prevalence among younger cohorts. Using data from the most recent Families, Social Subjects, and Life Cycle survey (2016), we selected a sub-sample of 2,135 childless individuals born between 1916 and 1971 (women aged at least 45 and men at least 50 at the time of the interview). Employing sequence analysis, we reconstructed month-by-month life histories, focusing on the interplay between union and employment statuses. Among various indicators, we selected the complexity index to assess the heterogeneity of these trajectories. Our findings reveal that complexity increases in more recent cohorts, with higher complexity associated with being female, having higher education, residing in northern Italy, and holding progressive attitudes towards cohabitation and non-traditional family forms. These results highlight the increasing complexity of life trajectories leading to childlessness, confirming the transition towards more unstable life courses in both work and relationships.

The resident population in Italy is characterised by a decline in births. In 2023, 379,890 births were recorded, down by 3.4% compared to 2022. The decrease is due to the decline in births among Italian couples (around 3/4 of the total births). However, the number of children born to couples in which at least one of the parents has foreign citizenship have also decreased. In 2023, these births were 80,942, -1.5% over 2022. The maturity of the migratory phenomenon in Italy, with immigrants arrived years ago and now residing permanently in Italy, makes it increasingly complex to analyse their reproductive behaviour. Indeed, in recent years, the acquisitions of Italian citizenship increased. The aim of this work is to analyse the births of the resident population, distinguishing between children born by Italian parents at birth (who have probably spent life in Italy) and those born to parents who have acquired citizenship (likely people with a history of migration). The study can contribute to have a more precise measure of the integration process and a deeper insight into the contribution of the immigrants (both those with foreign citizenship and those who have acquired Italian citizenship) to the number of births.