CARLA GE RONDI

Quale famiglia in Italia?

211

Gennaio-Aprile 2006

Anno LXXI    n. 1

Summary - The statistical analysis of families can lead to misleading conclusions if carried out without paying due attention to the definition of the family or to the effects of demographic factors - especially that of age - on family types. Such conclusions prevent theorists from correctly capturing the peculiarities of the Italian situation, causing them to overemphasize certain aspects or underplay others. The present research therefore began by taking into consideration the criteria for defining, classifying and identifying families, as adopted by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica) when carrying out a census for a multifaceted research project on families. The current morphology of the Italian family was then analysed, attempting to ascertain how far this depends on behavioural changes and how far it depends on the unfolding of the individual lifecycle. To this end, the individual data of the 2002 research on families (provided by the ISTAT on CD-Rom) were used. Analyses were carried out of the characters of people living alone (in particular, young and old individuals), of couples (both married and common-law) and of single parent families (taking into consideration only adults between the ages of 30 and 59). Finally, attention was drawn to the ways in which those who have experienced marital break-ups (the separated, the divorced or the widowed) have re-organized their own family lives, seeking to provide an overall view not only of their family circumstances but also of their social and economic situations.