Job instability and family trends: a comparative study

Fiorenza Deriu, Università di Roma "La Sapienza"
Paolo Naticchioni, Università di Roma "La Sapienza"
Marija Mamolo, Vienna Institute of Demography
Paola Di Giulio, Vienna Institute of Demography
Laura Bernardi, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and Université de Lausanne
Silvia Muzi

Over the past forty years the labour market has undergone deep-reaching changes. Job flexibility is now very much the rule, and job opportunities are largely with fixed-term contracts. While, on the one hand, there is now a choice between a wider range of types of contract, on the other hand, for the younger generations, hopes of setting up a family, based essentially on economic stability, are all too often thwarted. This article, starting off from the results of the international JIFT project, illustrates the essential empirical evidence emerging in the relationship between employment characteristics, in particularly job insecurity, and family formation patterns (i.e. entering union and having children)in a sample of young adults aged between 25 and 44 living in four urban environments (Hamburg, Ljubljana, Rome and Warsaw), in the light of a series of social-economic and demographic factors and determinants.