Why Kids Today?: Evidence on the Old-Age Security Motive from the Italian Pension Reform

Francesco C. Billari, Università Bocconi
Vincenzo Galasso, Università Bocconi

Evidence of motives for childbearing in contemporary societies is not abundant. This is particularly true for old-age security motives. In this paper we build a stylized economic framework to distinguish consumption vs. investment motives for childbearing. We then exploit the unique opportunity of a discontinuity in expected pensions introduced by an Italian pension reform to show quasi-experimental evidence of old-age security fertility motives.