Tra lavoro e famiglia: analisi della relazione tra tempo dedicato al lavoro e prima unione in Italia

Cohabitation started to increase in Italy since the beginning of the XXI century. Marriage, however, still has a great symbolic significance for tradition and religion, and offers greater legal rights and duties to the spouse in case of separation. Despite Italian familistic organization, women’s labor market participation is changing in the last decades and affecting family formation practices. In this paper, we study the role of employment/non-employment status, in combination with a part-time or full-time position on the transition to first marriage or cohabitation of Italian women, largely under-studied in this respect. We use data on Italian women aged 25-59 stemming from the Multipurpose Family and Social Subjects Survey 2009 and apply event-history techniques on the transition to first marriage and cohabitation. We find that part-time work – if chosen - and the nonparticipation in the labor market are decisive for the entry into marriage, but not for cohabitation. For both types of union - but especially for cohabitation - the only factor that varies over time is, however, whether or not to have a job, which discourages the entry into union for those born in the 70s compared to older generations. This could be due to the need for a double income to establish a union that provides for a sharing of time but also of expenses, whether it be marriage or cohabitation.