Gender roles and parenting practices among married and cohabiting couples: evidence from the Italian Time Use Survey

The process of union formation and, consequently, the context of childrearing has deeply changed in Italy in the last decades. The increase in non-marital cohabitation has been accompanied by an impressive spread of out-of wedlock births. The possible consequences of these changes on gender roles set within couples are quite unknown in this country. In particular, there is no clear evidence whether (and how) Italian married and unmarried parents differ in childrearing practices. This paper focuses on the differences between married and cohabiting parents of pre-school children in the time dedicated to childcare and dom estic tasks, in a gender perspective, using a sample from the 2008/09 Time Use Survey. We expect that cohabitating parents are more egalitarian in sharing unpaid work, but we want to verify whether this is explained by the cohabitation in itself or rather by differences in individual and couple characteristics (such as labor market participation and education level). Moreover we are interested to assess qualitative differences in parenting practices also in terms of type of childcare (physical or relational). A special attention will be dedicated to fathers' role according to the kind of couple.