REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN ITALIAN FERTILITY Caltabiano, Marcantonio; Rosina, Alessandro
Rivista internazionale di scienze sociali,
2018, Volume:
126, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In this paper we discuss the differences in fertility levels and timing among Italian regions. We firstly present the trends that characterized these differences in the last forty years along the ...North-South divide. We show, in particular, that in the first decade of this century the total fertility rate in the Northern area surprisingly surpassed the level of rest of the country. We then investigate the driving forces of this reversal, some related to the economic background of each area (e.g. women unemployment and participation to labor market), but also some related to its social and cultural characteristics (e.g. welfare effectiveness, diffusion of new family behaviors). We conclude discussing the perspectives of fertility levels, positive in the centre-north, negative in the southern area, due to a combination of restraining factors that policies should remove.
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This paper aims to explore the determinant factors for young adults' achievement of residential independence (in 2016) from the family of origin for Italian young adults, conditionally on having ...expressed positive intentions of moving out twelve months prior (in 2015). Using data from the longitudinal survey Rapporto Giovani, carried out by the Toniolo Institute of Advanced Studies, the authors provide empirical evidence that the inability to find a stable job reduces young adults' perspectives of autonomy. Net of employment status and of macroeconomics context, individuals with higher education are more likely to realize their intentions of leaving moving out.
Objective: The study aims at analysing the recent trends in fertility in Italy and at discussing its possible future trends. Methods: We analyse the evolution of demographic indicators, such as the ...total fertility rate and the maternal age in Italy, in the last 30 years and we look for the most relevant determinants of birth postponement. We also discuss the most recent fertility forecasts for Italy and their implications. Results: In Italy, the total fertility rate has declined sharply in the last 30 years, reaching a level among the lowest in the world. However, in the last decade a reversal in this trend has been recorded. We here show that, net of the effect of immigration, this reversal is mainly due to a recovery of postponed births after age 30. Nevertheless, this recovery is not sufficient to raise the total fertility rates up to the replacement level. The reasons for this insufficient recovery are related both to the marked delay in transition to adulthood and to the difficult reconciliation of work and maternity for Italian women, both hampering the fertility rates. Conclusions: The fertility decline in Italy has finally stopped in the last years even if the maternal age is continuously increasing. However, without ad hoc family policies the fertility recovery will be weak and limited to those areas of the country with a better welfare system and economically more developed.
The goal of this study is to describe the process of birth postponement and recovery in Italy, a country withpersistent very lowfertility levels.
The case of Italy is particularly noteworthy given ...that this country carries great demographic weight in Southern Europe, an area characterized by cultural and institutional specificities which have important implications for the timing of family formation and the final number of children.
We use data recently published by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat), applying a cohort approach to show changes in CTFRs and the timing of births for the 1950-1980 cohorts. In order to further evaluate the evolution of Italian “fertility ageing” across social groups (with a focus on female education), we also use individual-level data from the 2003 Istat multipurpose survey,Famiglia e soggetti sociali(Family and Social Subjects).
We find that a recovery is presently underway in the northern regions of Italy, even if not all postponed births are recovered. As expected, signs of recovery are above all evident among the youngest generations and more educated women.
The aim of this article is to examine the determinants of couples’ childbearing intentions, by explicitly taking into account the agreement or disagreement of the two members of the couple. The ...relevance of the partner’s reproductive intentions has been well recognised in the literature, but few studies have provided in-depth analyses of the fertility plans of both partners. In our study, we used the household-level data from a survey on “Family and Social Subjects”, carried out by the Italian National Statistical Office in 2003, which provides characteristics on both partners. We adopted a couple’s perspective which allows us to give a unitary picture of the concordant or discordant nature of partners’ first child intentions. We found that a lack of agreement in the reproductive decision-making process is likely to occur in the Italian couples where the role of the woman is less traditional. In particular, cohabitant, highly educated and working women are more likely to be in disagreement with their partners in the decisions concerning having a first child. Being religious may be also a source of discordance in the couples’ reproductive plans. Our findings support the utility of taking a couple-based approach in studies on fertility intentions.
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Recently there has been increasing interest in the estimation of age-specific fecundability as a result of the progressive postponement of age at family formation in Western countries. It must be ...noted, however, that the possible negative effects of the postponement could act not only on the physiological component of the ability to conceive but also on the behavioural component (i.e., sexual activity). The main aim of our study was to verify if, the desire to have a child being equal, the coital frequency decreases in one's 30s as compared to the 20s. For our analysis we used the data from the Multinational Study in Daily Fecundability (MSDF), which has produced a very rich database with behavioural and physiological information prospectively collected on every cycle. We found empirical evidence that the desire to have a child only partially compensates for the decline of coital frequency with age. Adapted from the source document.
Beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, infant mortality in Veneto (a region in northeastern Italy) began to increase, starting at 250‰ and rising to 350‰ by the mid-nineteenth century—one of the ...highest levels ever recorded in modern Europe. This dramatic change—in a period of worsening economic conditions—was due to variations in winter neonatal mortality, which was 3–4 times higher in Veneto than in other areas with similar winter temperatures (such as England). We combine micro-data on neonatal mortality with daily data on temperatures for a specific context during the period of 1816–1868 characterized by very high neonatal mortality. We find that the risk of death was particularly intense during the first week of life and strongly correlated with external minimum temperature. Through a comparison of these results with other findings in the literature, we suggest that the increase in winter neonatal mortality in Veneto could have principally been caused by the deteriorating physical condition of mothers, lessening the ‘quality’ of infants who consequently were quite susceptible to cold temperatures.
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The book by Francesco Billari & Gianpiero Dalla Zuanna, La rivoluzione nella culla. Il declino che non c'e (The Revolution in the Cradle. The Decline That Isn't 2008) is praised for its clear & ...direct, though at times uncomfortable, message that immigration must be considered as a valuable structural element in Italian development. Immigrants now constitute a sizable part of Italy's population, & their presence is beneficial to the health & wealth of the nation. It is, however, true that the rapid influx of immigrants has made it more difficult for both Italian & immigrant youth to enter the labor market as early they might have, since the immigrant population as a whole is younger than that of native Italians. The resolution of this demographic population over time is discussed. Adapted from the source document.
In a paper published in this journal, Renzo Derosas (2009) presents a study on the determinants of infant mortality in nineteenth-century Veneto in which he uses micro-data to analyse the ...relationship between maternal malnutrition and the risk of dying during the first weeks of life. Emphasizing that the case of Veneto, a large region in north-eastern Italy, is of particular interest. Studies suggests that infant mortality rates rose from around 250 per thousand in the mid-seventeenth century to 350 per thousand at the beginning of the nineteenth, levels unsurpassed throughout the rest of Italy and most European countries'
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