Morfogenesi della famiglia italiana: la prospettiva socio-demografica

The gap recorded in Italy during the last fifty years between the rate at which the population and the total number of families have grown is the most meaningful marker of morphological change occurred in family structures in Italy. The path ticked by the census shows interesting symmetries and divergences for the people and families. The second half of last century was a period of emphasis on growth for both, followed by a phase of rapid deceleration and, finally, a hint of a recovery rate of increase during the decade between the last censuses. The well-known phenomenon of "atomization" of family structures (ie families more numerous but smaller and smaller) was not uniform throughout the country, in particular, in the last two decades of the century trends seems to align but sometimes at levels substantially different. In this work the changes in intensity of the various family ties are read through a double key of interpretation: the increase in number of coexisting generations and the decrease of the frequency of their cohabitation under the same roof. These changes are also observed through the steps that each person goes through in the course of individual life and family. In summary, the changes that have affected the Italian family in recent decades seem to connect to the action of changing socio-cultural context of local, national and international levels on the family life cycle. The increasing number of families and their small average size testify the emergence of new demographic realities, the decline in fertility the increase of survival, which became structural in Italy and that now seems to add to the rapid and intense change caused by the rise of immigration from abroad. In the Italy of the XXI century the institution of the family does not seem to have lost that centrality in the life stories that are typically based on the sharing of a consolidated system of values, both at the individual level and for the society as a whole. In conclusion, it is true that less people get married, that make fewer children and that marital instability increases, but it is equally true that the family model still remains the core of emotional life and relationships and the one that more than any other institution provides and distributes aid and support both to the traditional fragile categories (young, elderly, disabled and so on) and to the new increasing category of foreigners.