Assessing the impact of national and regional financial incentives for childbearing in a lowest-low fertility setting. Extended abstract.

Italy has been together with Spain the first country that has reached the threshold of so-called "lowest-low" fertility below 1.3 children per woman during the early 1990s. Within Italy some regions have even lower fertility levels as a high heterogeneity exists between regions. In 2003 regional-level TFR data indicated that Friuli-Venezia Giulia a Region endowed with special autonomy levels in the North-East had a TFR of 1.16 (against the national level having reached 1.29). Whether policies may affect fertility at such levels is still to be proven. And in general in her overview on the impact of policies on fertility Gauthier (2001) stated that "Overall thus the multivariate studies provide mixed conclusions as to the effect of policies on demographic and economic behavior once other factors such as education income etc. are controlled for. The effect - if any - tends moreover to be small. Methodological issues may be at the basis of these inconclusive findings...". In this paper we present an assessment of policies that help families with children at two levels (national level and regional level focussing on Friuli - Venezia Giulia for the latter). (excerpt)