This paper aims to advance our understanding of entry into employment with uncertain conditions in Italy and its causal impact on the onset of the fertility process. We adopt the potential outcome approach to causal inference so as to quantify the net effect of having a first job with a temporary or a permanent contract on the propensity to have a first child within the first five years of employment. The analysis is based on retrospective data from the nationally representative 2009 Family and Social Subjects survey. Our results suggest that 7% of potential first-birth postponement among women and 5% of potential postponement among men is attributable to jobs with uncertain conditions. These individuals would have had a first child if they had had a permanent job. For women, potential postponement is elevated among those with higher education (reaching 16%), while for men potential postponement is especially visible among those with low and medium education. With this paper we quantify a non-negligible negative effect for early exposure to labour market uncertainties on potential first-birth postponement in Italy.

本文旨在增进我们对意大利不确定条件下的就业及其对生育过程开始的因果影响的理解。我们采用潜在结果方法进行因果推理，以量化在就业的头五年内拥有一份临时或永久合同的第一份工作对生育第一个孩子的倾向的净影响。该分析基于具有全国代表性的 2009 年家庭和社会主体调查的回顾性数据。我们的结果表明，7% 的女性和 5% 的男性可能推迟生育是由于工作条件不确定。如果这些人有一份固定工作，他们就会生第一个孩子。女用，受过高等教育的人可能会推迟（达到 16%），而对于男性来说，潜在的推迟在受过中低教育的人中尤为明显。通过本文，我们量化了早期暴露于劳动力市场不确定性对意大利潜在的第一胎推迟的不可忽略的负面影响。