This paper attempts to develop a behavioral model of female labor supply in Italy using cohort data. Our starting theoretical assumptions of perfect information, intertemporal separability, and utility maximization under a lifetime wealth constraint are relaxed in a second stage. The results suggest that the flat female participation rate profile (from both a time-series and a cross-section perspective) is presumably produced by economic incentive effects that counter-balance each other. However, with the recent rise in cohort-specific earning power, we identify a decrease in the work-disincentive effects of aging and of children under 6.