The deep drop of the fertility rate in Italy to among the lowest in the world challenges contemporary theories of childbearing and family building. Among high-income countries, Italy was presumed to have characteristics of family values and female labor force participation that would favor higher fertility than its European neighbors to the north. We test competing economic and cultural explanations, drawing on new nationally representative, longitudinal data to examine first union, first birth, and second birth. Our event history analysis finds some support for economic determinants of family formation and fertility, but the clear importance of regional differences and of secularization suggests that such an explanation is at best incomplete and that cultural and ideational factors must be considered.Keywords Fertility Á Union formation Á Italy Á Demographic theories Á Event history analysis Á Social change Á Geographical differences Résumé La fécondité a baissé de façon très marquée en Italie, pour atteindre à présent un des niveaux les plus bas du monde, ce qui représente un défi pour les théories contemporaines de la procréation et de la formation des familles. Parmi les pays à revenus élevés, l'Italie disposait de caractéristiques en matière de valeurs familiales et de participation des femmes au marché du travail qui auraient dû lui permettre de bénéficier d'une fécondité plus élevée que celle des pays voisins vers le Nord. Nous testons des hypothèses économiques et culturelles, à l'aide de nouvelles données longitudinales représentatives à l'échelle nationale, nous permettant d'examiner la première union et les première et seconde naissances. L'analyse biographique que nous avons menée fournit des éléments en faveur des déterminants économiques de la formation des familles et de la fécondité, mais l'importance des différences régionales et de la sécularisation suggère que ce type d'explication est au mieux incomplet, et que des facteurs culturels et normatifs doivent être pris en considération.
This review examines one of the most fundamental issues of family history, the nature of domestic groups in which people lived in the past. The focus is further limited to the evolution of family forms in Europe. Although such models as those originally proposed by Laslett and Hajnal for western family history have been shown to be wanting, they have served an invaluable role in stimulating and guiding family history research. We are now able to begin to grasp the contours of a much more complex western family heritage than earlier scholars recognized.
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