Abstract

This paper makes an empirical analysis of the effect of a common origin within a couple on fertility. We use the Bank of Italy's Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) to examine the fertility of a sample of Italian women and find that those with the same origin as their husbands tend to have more children, even after controlling for several individual, family-level, and area-of-residence characteristics. We also find that the impact of homogamy on fertility is stronger for less educated women and for those residing in backward areas.