The incremental time cost of children in different fertility contexts: evidence from France and Italy

The rising cost of children is considered a reason for declining fertility. This paper assess the incremental time cost of children for Italian and French couples’, according to children’s number and age. Using the Italian Time Use Survey (2002-03) and the French one (1998-99) we select a subsample of respectively 4,827 and 2,417 either married or cohabiting couples: 22% of them are childless, while the others have at least a child under 13 years old. As an increase in parents’ total work means a corresponding compression of both pure leisure and time for personal care, the marginal time cost of children is calculated by comparing the total daily workload (paid and unpaid work) of couples with and without children. Each cost is measured first on the couple and secondly on each partner in a gender perspective. We run three separate OLS models on time dedicated to childcare, to unpaid work and to total work. Controlling for a plurality of covariates, results seem to corroborate the hypothesis that Italian children are more time-intensive than the French ones ( especially if they are infant and higher parities) and that Italian women bear a higher part of these costs than the French ones.