The recession that has hit advanced economies since 2007 had a very strong effect on family dynamics. Many studies address the issue of how the business cycles impact on fertility behavior, but empirical evidence have not come to conclusive results on the causal link between economic shocks and fertility.

Most studies argue that the latter responds to recessions only with a temporary postponement of births. However, a recent paper by Comolli and Bernardi (2015) finds a permanent negative effect of the Great Recession in the US on older childless women. In light of these results, we verify if a similar effect might be found in Italy.

We apply the difference-in-difference method to synthetic cohorts of childless women to assess whether the crisis had an impact on cohorts’ childlessness rates. Focusing on women around 40 years old allows quantifying the permanent effect of the Great Recession on childbearing (lost births) since, presumably, these women who are close to end of their reproductive lives will not have another chance to become mothers.

We use the Italian Labor Force Survey 2004-2016 to compare cohorts’ childlessness rates across the phases of the Great Recession and by education, area of residence and occupational status.