Having children in Italy. Their effects on union stability and a focus on the birth path in Tuscany

The purpose of this thesis is to gain insight into two themes tied to the Italian fertility. The first theme concerns the relationship between fertility and union dissolution in Italy. Among the several demographic features that might affect the disruption of couple relationships, some are related to childbearing, such as the number, age, and (possibly) sex of children, their legal status (biological, adopted, foster or stepchildren) and the timing of their birth in relation to union formation. Empirically, the impact of childbearing on union dissolution needs some clarifications. The influence of many aspects of childbearing on union dissolution have been primarily investigated for marriages, and usually ignored for informal unions (cohabitations) and for more complex unions, like marriages preceded by cohabitation. This work aims at assessing how close to (or far apart from) one another these three forms of union just mentioned - direct marriage, marriage preceded by cohabitation, and cohabitation - are with respect to the relationship between union dissolution and childbearing. Then, to study the effect of children on union disruption, several childbearing characteristics are explicitly addressed, to investigate this issue in a comprehensive way, and to tackle some inconclusive results found in the literature. Finally, given that forming a union (marriage or cohabitation) and breaking it, or having children, are decisions that are not taken by a single individual, this study investigates this issue both for men and women. The second theme focuses on how Tuscan mothers evaluate their experience during pregnancy, at childbirth and in the early postnatal period. Not many national or international sample surveys aim to investigate the experience of pregnant women, contrary to what happens for other care services. All these surveys show the importance of women's satisfaction as an indicator of the quality of maternity service, because their satisfaction has positive implications on the health and well-being of both mothers and children. Some socio-demographic characteristics seem to influence the woman's satisfaction with respect to the assistance received, but there is ample disagreement on their role. This work aims to evaluate women’s satisfaction, and to analyse the association with some socio-demographic characteristics during the period of gestation, at the delivery, and in the postpartum phase, separately. The multidimensionality of a concept such as satisfaction, which has been often neglected in previous studies, is taken into account, and special attention is paid to the context in which the woman lived, or the hospital in which she gave birth.