Lorenzo Todesco

Do Sons Prevent Marital Disruption More Than Daughters? Evidence From Italy

In a well-known study Morgan, Lye, and Condran (1988) stated that sons prevent the risk of divorce more than daughters do. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the sex composition of children on the stability of the parental marriage in Italy, a country where this research question is particularly interesting because of conservative gender roles within the family. The relative risk of marital dissolution is estimated for individuals with different numbers and sexes of children using a discrete time event-history model. The findings do not support either the hypothesis that sons contribute more to marital stability than daughters or the hypothesis that the effect of the sex composition of children has changed over time.

“Money Talks” or “Gender Trumps Money”? Explaining the Division of Unpaid Family Work Among Dual-Earner Parents in an Italian Metropolitan Area

The female employment rate in Western countries has risen dramatically in recent decades, but the division of unpaid family work remains strongly unequal. Clear solutions to this puzzle have proven elusive. This study aims to add new information from Italy to the knowledge concerning the division of domestic activities. To this end, two competing theoretical frameworks are tested, namely the relative resources perspective and the gender role attitudes perspective, using ordinary least-squares regression models. The analysis is based on a well-suited dataset confined to the city of Turin. The predictions from the relative resources perspective are poorly supported, whereas it is very difficult to draw a clear-cut conclusion as regards the gender role attitudes perspective. Further research is required to deepen these results.

Does Female Employment Always Undermine Marriage? Working Wives and Family Stability in Different Contexts of Italian Society

Previous research has shown that the association between female employment and risk of marital disruption is still far from clear-cut, partly because certain theoretical and empirical evidence indicates that it may vary according to different conditions. The purpose of this study is to reassess the association between female employment and marital stability in Italy, by viewing it as contingent on historical period, institutional and cultural context and wives’ gender ideology. The relative risk of marital disruption is estimated using discrete time event-history models. The empirical findings clearly show that wives’ employment in this country seems to be disruptive for marriages, and its effect remains constant across the different conditions tested in the analysis.

Housework Division and Perceived Fairness: The Importance of Comparison Referents

A long-standing theoretical tradition underlines the importance of comparison referents for fairness evaluation, i.e., people, experiences and expectations that individuals choose to compare with their own situation. However, few studies on perceived fairness of housework division have measured and tested comparison referents, partly because of the lack of suitable data. Moreover, findings were sometimes mixed because small convenience samples were used. Previous literature also neglected the distortive effects of self-serving bias in the choice of referents. This study, conducted in an Italian context, seeks to overcome these limitations by using a probabilistic sample and two different designs: a survey data analysis and an experimental-vignette technique which avoids the distortions of self-serving bias. The surveys findings reveal that the effects of comparison referents are strong and in line with expectations, though limited to the domestic behavior of male referents. Moreover, unfavorable comparisons have a stronger effect on perceived fairness than favorable ones. The vignette analysis indicates that comparison referents affect perceived housework fairness even if the effect of self-serving bias is controlled for.