13/02/2025 - DemoSoc Seminar: Changing families. Inequalities in family dynamics in Italy from a longitudinal perspective

The DemoSoc seminars at Universitat Pompeu Fabra aims to gather all researchers at UPF and beyond working on the fields of demography and sociology (social stratification).

The next DemoSoc Seminar of this course will take place on:

February, 13th

12.00 h 

20.287 (Jaume I)

Changing families. Inequalities in family dynamics in Italy from a longitudinal perspective

Dr. Tiziana Nazio, Ph.D, Lecturer of Sociology, University of Turin,  will be in charge of leading the session

Abstract: Recent literature on family dynamics in Italy has explored different underlying individual, household, and contextual factors that have driven changes in Italian family formation and instability. Current literature, however, has limited insight into the longitudinal family dynamics accounting for the most recent COVID-19 pandemic crisis, which nested into the intertwined longer-lasting effects of the Great Recession and economic crisis in the late 1980s and early 2000s.

This research addresses these limitations by exploring how major crises—the 1980s downturn, the Great Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic—have influenced family formation and dissolution in Italy over time, encompassing both single-person and couple households, focussing on social stratification factors. It also sheds light on the whole family process, i.e., emancipation from the family of origin -as single or in a couple- and family disruption. It provides a nuanced, time-sensitive understanding of family dynamics that acknowledges the cumulative impact of intersecting individual and contextual factors, including crises, on the Italian family landscape through fluxes into and out of households. The first wave of ITA.LI (Lucchini et al. 2023), a nationally representative longitudinal panel survey, is employed to model individuals’ family outcomes by estimating event history competing risk models on retrospectively collected individuals’ family histories: exits from the family of origin (into a new single person or couple household) and from the first union (through separation, divorce or widowhood).

Romanò, S. and Nazio, T. (2025), "Fostering employment match? Graduates’ internships and early professional experiences between individuals’ choices and institutional constraints", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-10-2024-0498
Bertogg, A., Nazio, T. & S. Strauss (2021), ‘Work–family balance in the second half of life: Caregivers' decisions regarding retirement and working time reduction in Europe,’ Social Policy and Administration [doi: 10.1111/spol.12662]
Luppi, M. & T. Nazio (2019), ‘Does Gender Top Family Ties? Within Couple and between Sibling Sharing of Caring Responsibilities’, European Sociological Review [doi:/10.1093/esr/jcz035]
O’Reilly, J., Nazio, T. & J. Roche (2014), “Compromising Conventions: Attitudes of dissonance and indifference towards full-time maternal employment in Denmark, ES, Poland and the UK,” Work, Employment and Society, 28(2): 168-88