Up to the mid- sixties, the Italian family remains substantially stable in the models of behaviour, with rates of marriages, separations and childbirths, despite the gradual decline in the number of births begun with the XX sec.

This descending parable recorded only one inversion of tendency, the so-called baby boom, in the 20 years following the Second World War, when the economic and social development of the country required reconstructive type of a family. But, actually, it was really the following economic miracle, consequent to industrialization, to urbanism, to modernization and consumerism that put the Italian family in crisis and broke the traditional models.

The student and feminist movements from l968 onwards had in fact denounced the decadence of the principle of authoritarianism in all human relationships, starting from the family group, and had led to a weakening of the patriarchal-bourgeois model and to the affirmation of a more democracy-based community.

Decisive in this direction was the emancipation of women, favoured by the amelioration of their level of education and by an increased presence in the labour market.

The most meaningful consequence of such a transformation was the resumption of the descending parable of birth-rate: in twenty years' time it has suffered a vertical decrement, and today it is not only the lowest in Europe, but in the world. Towards the Seventies, especially in the Centre-north women began to reject the traditional culture concerning the family and particularly maternity.

From this moment the childbirth rate started to decrease, and the age for marriage increased.

Yet the ideological bonds with the past remained very strong, as it is attested by the 1973 Doxa data, according to which among the most pleasant events typical of female life women still put maternity (the moment they know they are pregnant, birth of the first child, nursing, etc.).

The same research attests that 52% of the Italian women still felt maternity as a mission, as unconditional acceptance of the sacrifices connected to it; 39% saw it like a fundamental task but not the only one and only 6% considered it as a tool that tied a woman to the house and therefore tended to consider it as not important. The enormous value that was still given to childbirth is confirmed by the attitude towards abortion, decidedly rejected, except in cases of extreme gravity and medical necessity.

The attachment to the traditional conception was stronger however in the South and in the Islands, it concerned mostly housewives, the less educated and emancipated ones.

Yet, though they could wish to have children, daily necessities made the realization of it difficult, also because men, contributed poorly to the family job and women risked to exhaust their energies with the double presence in the job world he and in the house.

Accordingly the number of children per woman in Italy was 2,42 in 1970, a datum in line with the European average, but in 1980 it went down to 1,49, in 1990 to 1,30, in 1993 to 1,21, to come to the present national data, that reveal, besides, a deep difference between Centre-north and South of the country: here, in fact, the predominant model is still constituted by families with at least two children, born at brief distance from a mamma in her twenties; in the Centre-north the single-child system prevails, almost always born from 30year old women.

Three very important innovations corresponded to the new cultural requests of the seventies:

1. the introduction of divorce, with a law in Dec. 1970, confirmed by a referendum in May 1974(59,1 %), that regularized many situations of de-facto separations;

2. a new family law that in 1975 replaced the previous legislation of 1942, and which considers family as a democratic and parithetic social group, in which the relationships are not fixed drastically and hierarchized, but submitted to continuous renegotiations and substantially projected towards the new structural forms of the SYMMETRICAL, NUCLEAR AND DOUBLE-CAREER family.
3. The introduction of abortion, with a law in Jan.1977, confirmed by a referendum in May 1981(68% in favour of it).

The new family law states parity of rights and duties between wife and husband, it considers the job of the housewife equivalent to that of the husband outside, it recognizes the woman the law to preserve her proper family name and her own citizenship, affirms the common ownership of properties, it eliminates the patria potestas in the exercise of the authority on the children, widens the causes of annullability and of invalidity of the marriage; affirming a child-centred conception against an adult-centred one it considers natural children and legitimate children as equivalent, it imposes duties on the parents to maintain, to educate and to instruct the children according to their abilities, aspirations and natural inclinations, while it doesn't impose on the children "to honour and to respect" the parents, but " to respect the parents and to contribute according to their own substances and income until they cohabit".

In the eighties, the Italian families undergo a further phase of complex changes due to the increased material culture that from the higher classes progressively spreads to all the other social members. Inside the family group, autonomy and freedom of the single components increase. The relationship between individual and family continues to change, above all the possibilities of choice of the women grow: they are often in disagreement with their husbands and feel free to act their own way.

The decrement in birth rate continues in relationship to other factors, as fewer job opportunities, extension of schooling years, normalization of premarital sexual experiences, progressive postponement of the matrimonial age. In 1981, for ex., 62,3% of 28-year old males and 66,2% of 25 year old females were married; only 10 years after the percentages decrease to 36,7 % and 53,1 %.

At the same time, the normal situation is that of having children only inside marriage, a choice that reveals the strong influence still practiced by Catholic teaching on the Italian family.

In the nineties two characteristics related to marriage are to be taken into consideration: the increase in the civil marriages (that have passed from 16,8% in 1990 to 20,3 % in 1996) and the increase in second marriages, that caused the formation of many new reconstituted families.

A growth in natural births must also be underlined, that though maintained to levels lower than other European countries, have anyway passed from 6,4% in 1990 to 8,3% in 1995.

The woman has the first child later and later and less and less time and energies to repeat the experience. If in 1972 a woman had her first child at 24,9 years, in the nineties the age passes to 29 years and over.

Things are changed also on the male side: while having children was once considered an important demonstration of virility, now the mentality has changed and children are subordinated to the career and the search of individual self-fulfilment.

Furthermore, in many men the fear to become fathers and the habit to postpone the moment have taken over, alleging more or less reasonable justification, the most frequent being "the irresponsibility of having children in such an unfortunate epoch". Italians sociologists speak of egoism of the new couples or lack of (or excessive) sense of responsibility.

Really, it is undeniable that in contemporary Italy men and women in reproductive age are faced with responsibilities that require much caution. In comparison with the preceding generations they must provide to a great number of elderly, while young people have the tendency to remain longer and longer with their family, often constituting an economic problem and a sacrifice.

There is a common difficulty to conclude university studies, in many cases young people suffer from the condition of unemployed for a long time, and when they find a job it doesn't always guarantee them the economic possibility to get married.

We shouldn't be surprised, therefore, if today in Italy an unique child is already considered a notable investment, to whom, according to the consumerist mentality that has prevailed, everything must be provided. The choice of the unique child is also favoured by the attitude of the State that doesn't offer any concrete stimuli, like fiscal facilitations, benefits, quality of the services, etc.

Despite the changes that have taken place, up to 1994 the Italian family seems to maintain a certain cohesion, if we compare our statistics with those of other European countries: after twenty years from the introduction of the divorce, we have 16 separations and 8 divorces out of 100 marriages, in comparison with the 35 of France and the 44 of the Great Britain.

The number of separations and divorces progressively increases in the following years: in 1997 the separations are 60.281, the divorces 33.342, more to the North, where those consensual prevail, fewer to the South where the judicial ones are 1/4 of the total one.

According to the latest surveys of the ISTAT, in Italy the couples with children divorce more (55,4%) than couples without; children involved are 94.320, of which 58.186 not yet of age, 90% of which entrusted to their mother.

When we examine the number of the components of the families we find that those of 3 components have remained stable, those of 1-2 have increased, those of 4 have decreased: in fact it seems that in a country as ours, in which the choice of the unique child is made, it is often the arrival of the second child that puts the couple in crisis, above all where the parithetic relationship between husband and wife is founded upon the independence conquered by the woman through her own income.

In fact, with the arrival of the second child women often decide to give up their job in order to devote full time to the care of their children. This renouncement, however, seems to provoke a breach in the equilibriums and in the roles inside the family, restoring a situation of the past: the man becomes again the only source of income, retaking the role of head of the family and the right to practice more power: an unbearable situation for today's women.

In other cases the marriage enters in crisis because the second child is seen as "a repairer ", in the sense that not few are the couples that decide to solve a critical situation by giving birth to a child that might bring them back to the lost affinities. In reality, according to the sociologists, it always happens that its arrival exasperates the tensions and leads to divorce.

The increased number of separations and divorces produces new families.

They are by now 1.631.000 separate de-facto, legally and divorced, who experiment the new forms of family. The greatest part of the separate ones has an age between 35 and 54 years. 36% are single and 36% are single parents; more fathers live alone, more mothers live with their children. In 1998 the reconstituted families were 564.000 (3,8% of the couples), either legally married or not not. The greatest part of them are in the North, where the married ones prevail. In these new unions children belonging to one only of the two partners are 130.000.

In the last years the number of the marriages in which a consort is foreign has also notably grown (above all wives, in prevalence from east Europe, then from centre-southern America), and this is found more to the North that to the South: from 1,7% in 89 they have passed to 4,1% in 95.

When we consider all the typologies of family, today at the first place we find the couples with children without other members (44,5%), singles follow (21,3%), the couples with no children or other components (19,6%), the one-parent families without other components (7,5%). The of aging of the population has also effects on the increase of the families with at least 1 elderly, over 65 years (34,5% of the couples), over 75 (15,7%); for the same reason families formed only by elderly have also increased.

The family typologies also underline a strong territorial differentiation: in the Northwest it is recorded, for instance, the highest quota of singles, of one-parent families, of couples without children. The Centre presents the smallest number of couples without children, the South the smallest number of singles and the highest number of couples with children.

The supremacy of the complex families goes to the Centre-north and the metropolitan areas.

In Italy also the number of people that have experimented a free union in their life is growing, experience that involves above all separate or divorced, with a degree or a diploma, both employed and unemployed.

The experience is generally felt as a phase of transition, but its duration tends to increase. Particularly it is women that have the tendency to live it as their first experience after leaving their family, this also progressively deferred. Though it is men who remain longer in their original families, it is notable the rhythm of growth of the phenomenon also among the women, consequently to the prolongation of the studies or to unemployment.

However it is not the unemployment that the young people assert as the main cause why they tend to remain in the family; the 1998 Istat data motivate it with the fact that the family environment is hospitable, it allows to develop their own autonomy, including the moments of intimacy with the partner; conditions, these, much rarer in the South. Without neglecting, then, the economic advantages that derive from the permanence in the family: the unemployed ones receive regularly money and they often have a bank account (24,6%); less than half of the employed ones contribute economically in a regular or irregular way.

An interesting datum related to the Italian family is the maintenance of the intergenerational solidarity: grandfathers, parents and children often live in near houses and see one another daily.

Actually, such a tie has always existed and was weakened only in the Fifties and Sixties, because of the great inside migrations, with the industrialization and with the affirmation of the new juvenile culture. Already from the seventies a definite resumption of strict relationships is reaffirmed among generations; even in the large cities grandfathers more and more often look after their nephews and, when they become less independent, the young generations, especially the women, look after them

As for the roles of father and mother inside the family, the patriarchal system has become a minority in the Eighties - Nineties. Men, however, still find it difficult to accept the new dynamics of family life.

Towards their children they behave more as elder brothers, friends or confidants, if not as servants. They have surely become more affectionate, protective and indulgent, but at the same time more insecure: not rarely, in fact, they manifest problems in communicating key values to their children, like autonomy and assumption of responsibility, essential factors for the process of growth of the teen-agers and for their progressive separation from the family nucleus.

Mothers represent the fulcrum of the family: the mother-centrism of the Italian family finds a distant explanation, in the deep still existing link with two archetypes of our culture, that of the Virgo Maria (symbol of purity, sacrifice, wisdom, spirit of mercy) and that of the Great Mediterranean Mother, already present in the Etruscan and Italic culture (symbol of possessiveness, protection, dependence).

This last one, besides, seems to explain the element of "mammismo" (the " mammas "), term with refers to a relationship of privileged and spoiled dependence with the maternal figure, seen as a symbol of protection and safety.

1994 ISTAT dates attest that 1/3 of married men see their mother every day; 27% more times a the week (higher to the South); 7 bachelors on 10, over 35 and 1/4 of divorcés return to their mother, who symbolises the matriarchal house, provider of services, where everything works perfectly.

An important role in imposing the mother-centred system as a model of family perfection was initially played by the Catholic church, but subsequently its place was taken by the media, that presented perfect mothers and wives, idealized, always in able to perform a great variety of roles, while in the daily reality a working mother's routine was much more fatiguing and poorly supported by the companions, above all to the South and in the outskirts of the large cities.

Despite the centrality of their role in the family, at the beginning of 2000 the Italian women, young and adult, show a clear clean tendency to choose less and less the traditional model of " housewife-wife-mother ".

1998 ISTAT data attest that the model has decreased from 9,9% to 3,5% among the 20-24 year old people; from 27,5% to 15,3% among the 25-29 year olds; from 34% to 24,1% among the 30-34 years; from 44% to 28,1%among the 35-44 year olds; from 45,4% to 39%among the 45-54 year olds. And this decrease concerns the whole country.

Among the twenty-year old ones also the multi-role model of the woman "worker in couple with children" decidedly decreases, a little bit less among the 30 year olds, slightly among the 40 year olds, while it has sensitively been increasing among the women from 45 to 54 years.

At present, in the whole country, the young housewives are a more and more a minority and often this condition is not a choice but a makeshift, caused by the difficulty to find a job: and this explains the frustrations tied up to their situation.

Nevertheless, the uneasiness of the multi-role women, that end up working 60-70 weekly hours, is not inferior, also if they declare they are substantially more satisfied gratified than housewives.

As for the future it is not difficult to hypothesize for the woman and for the family forms many other changes, because female condition is still in evolution because of the higher and higher schooling of the women, that, in 10 years, will have a higher degree than the preceding generations.

Already now their position in the job market results also improved, considering that the employees, the executives and the free professionals are increased, nevertheless obstacles still remain to the fulfilment of female potentialities. Women, in fact, are not present yet in some sectors that are considered almost uncontested dominion of men, particularly in the public administration and in politics. Unbalance in the job responsibilities, unemployment of the young and southern women, violence in the relationships are still in general the obstacles to overcome and the aims of the Ministry for Equal Opportunities and the organisms of parity, particularly the National Parity Committee.

The transformations that took place in the family at the end of the sixties were only the beginning of a vast cultural change that would affect Italy in the following decades and that had its principal agent in the feminist movement.

The movement for the emancipation of the woman was born in Italy before 1968, but it was in the climate of confrontation of that year that it became strong and appeared with a vast plurality of aspects.

Generally, Italian women became feminist at the beginning of the seventies after having been militant in the left wing party, with the workers, but, shortly after, their ideas started to dissociate from that traditional left because this reproduced for a long time in its inside structure that hierarchical subordination of the woman to the man which was present in the society and it ignored the inequalities that sprang from the sexual divisions in the house and in the job.

From the criticism to the left ideology, that indicated the social revolution as the solution to the female problems, came the tendency to get organized in autonomous groups, with the purpose to reflect on the problems of femininity in a radical and coherent way; from this fact came the discovery of sisterhood, meant as separation of the women from the society of the men and the practice of self-consciousness as an instrument for their struggle.

The women recognized in every problem the importance of sexual separation and they set the " private " at the centre of their political action, departing from the sphere of reproduction, from which couple, family and children derive.

This was the line followed by the first feminist groups, above all from Female ebellion, born in 1970. The Women's Liberation Movement, composed in prevalence of middle class women, with a high level of education , was characterized by the maintenance of a greater benevolence towards the masculine world. The programs of other groups were more extremist, for instance Feminist Struggle that almost exclusively focused its attention on the economic exploitation of the housewife and contemplated with pleasure a utopian society in which the state would have paid for the house work at home.

In the first half the seventies the central initiatives were taken above all by the Mld that was near the ideas of the Radical Party. It made important campaigns for the rights of the women, for divorce, abortion and against sexual violence.

Particularly the campaign for the abortion was structured in a very different way from the previous social mobilizations, because for the first time personal experience stormed in the public sphere and was considered politics. Thanks to this campaign the female movement was imposed as a social force, able to influence somehow the political system, even if the following law contemplated various compromises (limited right of choice of the women, necessity to consult a physician or a social assistant, introduction of a week of reflection, application of authorization of parents in case of minor, right of objection of conscience for the physicians, etc.).

At the end of the seventies, the crisis of the left wing parties and the integration of the labour unions in the political system also influenced the feminist movement, that even if it was not subject to a " reflux " as other social movements, nevertheless it was fragmented and got lost in other movements as the ecologists and thepacifists.

The complexity understanding the fragmentation which began in the eighties prevents us from perceiving with total clarity the present theoretical search and political struggleof the women.

An aspect, however, emerges on the others, the job question, which appeared late in Italy, in comparison to other countries, when the first studies on the family, on the welfarestate, have started to show the double female presence as not residual in comparison with the past organizational models, but rather very modern and bound to last.

From these considerations, from the demand of an antidiscriminatory social politicy come the demands of of laws on the equal " opportunities " and of " quotas ", that is of a percentage of places of employment assigned to the women and, as it regards the parties, a percentage of women in the parliament. On the equal opportunities a work group is now working at political level, with the task to prepare a bill on the positive " actions " suggested by the EEC recommendation of13 Dec.1984, which define the "positive actions" as those that aim at removing disparities to which women are subject in the working life and at promoting mixed occupation.

The transformations undergone by the family in the last decades can also be underlined examining their consumptions and the way people spend free time.

From this point of view, two moments are delineated as fundamental: 1) the years of the economic boom, 2) the eighties.

The first phase is characterized by homogeneity, standardization and utilitarianism; the families, particularly to the Centre-north, spent the new acquired wealth in purchases aiming at pleasures unknown before, above all the services of domestic life: appliances to temper daily works, furnish for adorning the house, milk produce and meat to enrich the feeding, a great number of footwear and suits to be changed with great frequency.

The most meaningful acquisition of the new status was marked by cars, first the famous Fiat 600, followed then by the more economic Fiat 500. The automobile changed the life of the Italian family, also giving the middle classes and the high he working class the opportunity to spend out their leisure time; the habit of a Sunday trip out of town began and, subsequently, a few days of vacation to travel and to spend in the mountains or at the sea.

By now whole families get on the car to go on vacation, also because the number of holidays that the workers were given increased.

The possibilities of amusement grew also for the young people along with the greater economic availability of their parents and with a less rigid control of their fathers on the family income: cafes, ballrooms, stadiums and shops became important places of meeting, while the possession of motorbikes, Vespa and Lambretta, (replaced in the nineties by the Scooter) allowed easier moving.

The greatest impact on daily life and on leisure time, above all for the poorest families, came nevertheless from television, whose subscribers pass from 88.000 of 1954 to 1.000.000 of 1958 and to 50% of the families in 1965.

TV remained a state monopoly up to the end of the Seventies , therefore it was controlled by the Christian Democrat Party and heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. The broadcasts that had to cheer the Italian houses should not "bring disrepute or traps", they contained strong anticommunist prejudices, they broadcast regular programs of religious education, of light music, light comedies, quiz (the famous "Lascia o Raddoppia?"), sport and the evening "Carousel", the unique and brief moment of commercial adds, particularly pleasant for the children.

The impressive development of television determined the behaviours of the Italians and accentuated, for those who didn't own a car, the tendency to a more and more passive and home use of leisure time, to loss of pastimes of group character and socialization. The pictures, for example, knew a long period of decline, even if for several years continued being considered as the preferred Sunday pastime.

The second phase, that of the Eighties is characterized by hedonism, heterogeneity and abundance of offers thanks also to the advent of the computer science and to an increased attention for the individual and the different.

In the Italian houses, TV still remains on top position. It makes use of colours, and counts a proliferation of private channels, there is also a boom of video recorders (in 1986 only 3,5% had a VCR; in 1996 48%), videogames, personal computers, walkmans, CDs.

Adventure, emotions and dreams are the elements that push the Italians to buy appliances, fun becomes the main aim, but also expenses for cultural activities increase; for instance the Italian families spend a great sum of money for private schools of English, or music, or dance, for their children.

Statistics related to leisure time confirm nevertheless that mass TV still exercises an extraordinary hegemony, with 86,3%, at the expenses of reading, cinema and museums. It remains the only daily cultural activity of the middle class family, that spend watching it an increasing number of hours per day

(2,35 in 1988 and 3,35 in 1995), also if it is now characterized by repetitiveness, stereotypes, cultural emptiness and proliferation of commercial nets, with light programs including sport, telenovelas, video clips, to the serials, soap operas, talks shows.

Nowadays among the pastimes travels see an unprecedented expansion: initially it is the rich ones that organize family travels, above all to Disneyland, in Florida, later to Euro Disney in Paris. They are then followed by the less well to do ones who are satisfied with a trip to Gardaland, in Italy, and by the poorer who visit the trade centres that have open up in all the country.

At present the travel industry has assumed great dimensions, as the amount of flights every year and the recent opening of the new airport " Malpensa " 2000 show.

It is able to offer the possibility to travel abroad at prices relatively accessible to everybody, with endless combinations for all demands, both for the young people and for the elderly ones, towards places in fashion or to alternative destinations.

If for some families having a house of their own is still a dream, many organize their life on two houses: the first one is the place of daily life, of stress, of routine, of business-job-school; the other, in the countryside, in the mountains or at the seaside, becomes the house for leisure time and escape, the place where to recover, to relax at the end of a hard week, during the summer, Christmas and Easter vacations.

With travels, another old passion of the Italians is appreciated in this period: aesthetics; the care for the body and the worry for health are the new obsessions, which requires enormous expenses for medicines, gyms, beauticians, cosmetics, aesthetical surgery, thermal baths and stays at health centres.

Altogether, beginning from the second half the eighties four categories of styles of consumption can be underlined in the Italian families:

1) high styles (30% of the consumers), centred on two binomials, that of "wealth and image" (characterized by high levels of expense and building of a personal identity through the acquisition of exclusive objects) and that of" quality and equilibrium" (characterized by elegance, sobriety and great control on the consumptions).

2) Exploratory styles (28% of the consumers), repetitive of those of the young people of the early 80s (ostentation, frequent substitution of goods like watches, cars etc.) with the addition of gastronomic experimentation and jpurneys to exotic countries.

3) Traditional styles (20,5% of the consumers) related to the social classes of old Italy and characterized by conventionality, respectability, search of comfort, savings, sales.

4) Marginal styles (21,5% of the consumers, above all workers and elderly), characterized by poverty, indifference for the fashion, practical aims.

In substance, modern consumerism has involved a raising of the quality of life for the Italian families, an enormous enrichment of experiences and a great variety in the choice of goods and services.

Italy is a rather homogeneous country from the religious point of view. The religion of the majority of Italians is in fact Catholicism, to which a great part of the Italian history and art is linked. Among the Catholics there are those of Oriental rite of the Albanians and Greek islands

The second religion is the Protestant one, with several sects, among which the 45.000 Valdeses historically situated in some valleys of the Piedmont.

Numerous are also the Jehovah witnesses.

The Hebrew ones are around 35.000

A new reality is now represented by the increasing number of Moslems, numerous among the immigrants, for whom the greatest mosque of Europe has been erected in Rome.

In Italy, therefore, the influence exercised by the Catholic Church has always been strong for obvious historical reasons, but starting from the sixties it began to decline, as a result of the exodus from the countryside and of the urbanization.

On the outskirts of the large cities, only 11% of the men and 26% of the women went to mass on Sundays, according to the 1968 data but the number of people who attend regularly the Church in the rural areas and among the women has always been high, though also this datum is changing: if in 1956 69% people regularly went to service on Sundays, in 1962 the number already decreases to 53%, in 1968 to 40% and it results that now only 6% could be considered really devoted, in the sense of attentively following Catholic teachings.

The percentage of the practising believers subsequently decreased in the Seventies, reaching 35% in 1973, going up again to 37% in 1976, up to reach a minimun of 32% in 1979, as a consequence of the conclusion of the process of economic-social transformation begun in the Sixties; the last datum is substantially maintained constant up to the Nineties, introducing light oscillations, and recording the lowest rates in the large cities: in 1990, for example, only 19,1% of the adults in Milan, 15,2 in Rome and Naples, 7,9% in Florence, 4% in Bologna attended regularly the Sunday mass.

Meanwhile the number of the priestly vocations drastically fell too, while the diocesan clergy was becoming an elderly structure, less and less able to act in accordance with a population that undergoes continuous social changes.

Particularly in the Eighties the distance from society became enormous, especially when the Church decidedly sustained that the role of the woman was that of bride and mother and kept on setting vetoes on institutes, by now approved and accepted,, like divorce, artificial contraception, homosexuality, cohabitation, abortion, etc.

It is to be underlined also a constant decrease in the number of people who take active part in the activities of the parishes devoting themselves particularly to the catechism of children and boys.; only few ones prefer them to alternative forms of charity in strong growth

Nevertheless, despite the reduction in the share of active Catholics, due to urbanization and secularisation, it is also to be noted that the ecclesial life seems to know a greater qualification at all the levels, in the last decades, the birth and the rapid diffusion of numerous spiritual groups attest (Charismatics, Ciellini, Focolarini etc. ), some of them very informal, others more structured and monastic type, who are active t on the whole national territory.

Rate of total fertility in the UE countries (12), 1970 - 92.

Women from 20 to 34 years of age for professional condition, position in the family and classes of age–Years 1990 and 1998 ( % )

Women from 35 to 54 years of age, employed or housewives, for position in the family and class of age–years 1990 and 1998 (values percentages)

Women from 20 to 54 years of age for position in the family, professional condition or not professional, age–year 1998 (values percentages)

Families per typology. Average 89/90, 93/94, 97/98 (per 100 families)

Source: Istat Investigations Multiscopo 1990, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998 * (provisional data)

Families per number of components. Average 1989/90, 1993/94 and 1997/98 (per 100 families)

Source: Istat Investigations Multiscopo 1990, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998 * (provisional data)

Families per geographical division and typology. Average 1997/98 (for 100 families)

Source: Istat Investigations Multiscopo 1990, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998 * (provisional *dati)

Family nucleuses for typology. Averages 1989/90, 1993/94, 1997/98 (for 100 family nucleuses)

Source: Istat Investigations Multiscopo 1990, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998 * (provisional *dati)

"New families" and people that live in new families, per type

Source: Istat Investigations Multiscopo: "Family, social subjects and conditions of the infancy"–Year 1998

Unmarried couples with children and without children in 1990 and in 1998 (in thousands)

Separations and divorces for geographical division. Year 1997

Entrusted children owing to separations and divorces, per type of entrustment and age .

Sources: ISTAT, DOXA, CENSIS

At the beginning of the 21^st century the demographic reality of Italy expressed in figures is the following: around 57 million inhabitants, with a birth-rate gone down to 10% and equal to the number of deceases.

The population is characterized, therefore, by a "zero growth" rate, with the average duration of life that approaches 80 years. Such a situation is the conclusion of a long evolutionary process that began at the end of 1800 and reached a maximum during the Eighties.

Middle-term forecasts announce a further decrease in births with a consequent decrease in total population, unless important migratory flows don't intervene from abroad. If such demographic transformations will continue, they will have notable repercussions on the Italian society: for example, a decrease in the students' population or great well fare (pensions and health)–(see charts 1 –2 –3).

A new important reality is that of the immigrants. In the last few decades Italy has been transformed from an emigration country (see the great migratory movement in the fifties and early sixties mainly towards other more industrialized European countries, like Germany, Great Britain, France, Switzerland and Belgium where the request for man labour was high) into an immigration country.

Then in the late sixties and early seventies, when the difference between the development of the North and that of the South increased, a new great migratory wave began, this time from one part of the country to the other: from the South towards the factories of the North.

At first only man in job age emigrated and so, for a certain period of time, the South was essentially populated by women, elderly and children; then the families followed, with the consequent regular depopulation of rural centres and mountains, and the overpopulation of the industrial cities, above all Milan (that according to the 1995 census is the most crowded city in Italy, with 4.300.000 inhabitants,), Turin and Genoa, where the conditions of life for the immigrants resulted uncomfortable both for the problem of lodging and for the difficult social relationships.

In the mid-seventies half the years '70 the migratory movement stopped and a sort of re-entry towards the places of origin began.

But the Italian demographic social order was bound to be affected by a new unexpected reality: the immigration, a phenomenon of this last decade.

On January 1st 1998 the official number of foreigners living in Italy they was 1.022.896, 3,7% more when compared with the preceding year. They come mainly from East Europe and Northern Africa (v. tab. 4–5); between 1992 and 1998 there has been a notable increase in those from the ex- Yugoslavia and, then, from Albania. Among their motivations, it stays to the first place the search of a job is at the first place.

Lately foreign families who have been working in Italy for several years have asked new members to come from their original countries and join them. (see chart 6).

The territorial distribution is characterized by a strong concentration in the regions of the North–West and of the centre (see chart. 7); particularly great cities like Rome, (134.000 foreign residents) and Milan (80.000 foreign residents) are affected by the phenomenon.

The mass arrival of e immigrants has created enormous problems, with reactions of intolerance from some Italians. Such behaviour seems caused by the fear that immigrants may take away jobs (which doesn't occur, because immigrants are at present employed in jobs refused by the Italian workers) or that their presence may lead to an increase in criminality (which seems to occur, actually, because of the presence of many "irregular" immigrants, who expand the drugs and prostitution market).

Chart 1 Census of the Italian population according to sex. Female population, once a minority, from 1921 is decidedly more numerous than the male one, thanks to greatest longevity

Chart 2 Born alive, dead, natural balance, enlisted, cancelled, migratory balance, population at the end of every year.

Chart 3. Resident population on December 31 st 1998 ( sex and geographical division )

Chart 4 Residence permits ( continent and main citizenship areas) on January 1st 1997 and 1998

In the last 40 years the transformation of Italy from an agricultural country to one of the most industrialized countries in the world and the persistence of the unbalances among the different areas of the country have deeply affected both the dislocation of the population and the social and occupational situation of the peninsula.

First of all a process of tertiarization is in progress, common to all the industrialized countries; a great decrease in the number of agricultural workers has been followed first by an increase in workers in the industry and then, in these last years, a great increase in the private and public services.

From the social point of view in the last century, this has produced a wide urban middle class, made of employees, artisans, small entrepreneurs…

The chart below shows as the social classes have quantitatively varied in the period under observation.

1881 1921 1951 1971 1983

variations

1. middle class 1,9 1,7 1,9 2,5 3,3 + 1,4

2. urban middle classes 23,4 16,3 26,5 38,5 46,4 +23,0

of which:

private employees 0,6 0,8 5,2 8,7 10,2 + 9,6

civil servants 4,1 5,0 8,0 11,0 15,8 +11,7

artisans 14,2 4,9 6,0 5,3 5,8 - 8,4

3. peasants 22,5 37,0 30,2 11,9 7,6 - 14,9

4. Working class 52,2 45,0 41,2 47,1 42,7 - 9,5

of which:

a) agric. wage earners 35,6 21,8 11,8 6,1 4,0 - 31,6

b) industry 13,2 19,6 22,9 31,1 26,1 +12,9

c) tertiary 3,4 3,6 6,5 9,9 12,6 + 9,2

" Farmers " (3 + 4a) 58,1 48,8 42,0 18,0 11,6 - 46,5

From the point of view of the regional areas, when we divide the country in two great parts, the Centre-north and the South, a similar situation is found for what concerns the tertiary sector, while a certain difference is noticed in the others.

Nowadays in Italy of our times marginality occupies a large place: it is not a new phenomenon, but the social elements that compose it have changed. This new " poverty " is made of people that have lost their job (a phenomenon which is bound to increase in all the industrialized cities of Italy), of young unemployed (that still live with their parents) and of metropolitan tramps that in Italy they are estimated to be more than 10.000, the greatest part of which is less than 45 years old). This last category is partly connected to the preceding ones, as it is due not only to drug addiction, alcoholism, evictions, to marginalization caused by imprisonment or psychiatric hospitals, but also to the lack of a job, together with absence of family support.

In the South of the country the number of unemployed is , in percentage, greater than in the Centre - North; the female component is quite high; a part of the unemployed is selective in their search of employment, looking for a occupation coherent with to their level of education (see charts 1 - 2).

On the whole, it is then necessary to consider both those who declares they are unemployed while working in non-declared jobs, and those who have a double job. For what concerns the first case, that of the "submerged" jobs, statistics underline a percentage of 50,9 % of irregular working positions in the South and of 31,4% in the Centre - North, including those that have more activities.

Because of the above mentioned transformations of the productive structure and the social system, the situation of poverty in Italy, according to the data of the "Committee of investigation on poverty and marginalization", it still remains a serious problem without positive perspectives for the future (see charts 3 - 4).

I Quarter II Quarter III Quarter IV Quarter Total of the year

1999 12,4 12,1 *12,3

1998 12,2 12,5 11,9 12,6 12,3

Source: AmCham on Istat dates

* forecast

Total of the year

1998 12,3

1997 12,1

1996 12,1

1995 12,0

1994 12,0

Source: AmCham on Istat dates

North Centre South Italy

1996 1997 1996 1997 1996 1997 1996 1997

Fam. members

1 member 5,1 6,5 4,2 8,5 19,7 23,5 9,0 11,6

2 members 4,3 3,5 6,4 6,2 21,9 21,1 9,8 9,2

3 members 2,4 3,9 4,9 4,4 18,3 21,6 7,4 9,0

4 members 2,7 1,9 5,1 3,9 19,7 18,0 9,6 8,4

5 or + memb. 6,7 7,1 10,4 7,0 33,1 39,8 21,1 24,1

Sex

Male 3,1 3,2 5,7 4,8 21,9 23,5 10,1 10,6

Female 6,0 6,8 5,6 9,3 24,2 27,0 11,1 12,8

Chart 4 - percentage of the poor families on the total one of the families

Family typology %

less than 65 year old singles 5,2

Couples with a person with less than 65 years of age 1,4

single and couple with a person more than 65 years of age 9,4

Couple with 1 child 4,5

Couple with 2 children 5,5

Couple with 3 or more children 23,9

Single-parent 6,3

Families with at least a small child 10,1

Youth culture in Italy has undergone great changes in the past four decades.

In the fifties, there was a complete integration between the young people and the adults. Both the young people and the adults shared the same values: it was considered important to have a job, a wife or husband, a car, and to conquer a good social position.

At the end of the fifties, there was a reaction against the adults' set of values and expectations, and transgressive movements, like the one of the teddy-boys appeared. One of the consequences of this reaction was a change in the style of life, in the fashion and also in the objects they began to use.

While at the beginning of the decade boys were not allowed to wear blue-jeans at school and girls had to wear skirts, in the course of the sixties young people began to wear jeans jackets and trousers, and used to drive their motorbikes through the towns without showing any respect towards a society built on the "respectability" of the adults.

Since the end of the sixties up to the mid-seventies young people were highly politically committed, most of them sharing a collective vision of society.

In the seventies, the relationship between young people and the adults' society changed again. It is in this period, after the economic boom of the sixties, that unemployment became very common, among young people, a period of crisis begins that sees young people's illusions disappear and the opposition to the adults grow. The beginning of the decade is marked by the presence of a pacifist, political, movement, the hippies, a tribe style born in America, a descendant of the beat-generation, that reached Italy with an anti-cultural connotation and a tendency to reject any social commitment. Again fashion became a way to oppose the adults' world, young people refused to wear formal clothes, preferring flowered clothes and rings, while girls wore more and more trousers, as a sign of feminism. The use of drugs also became widespread, as one more possibility of exploring places and experiences alien to the adults.

The second half of the seventies and the eighties were characterized by the "punk" ideology, a street style coming from England, whose slogan was " no future" meaning that young people had no hopes. It was quite a pessimistic ideology, and marked by less and less important presence of the young from the political and social scene. The collectivist principles that were at the base of the youth culture of the sixties and the first part of the seventies was substituted by a strong individualism.

The Nineties were characterized by a new phenomenon: differences in the behaviour of young people, who were no longer homogeneous in their culture, and adults seemed no more depending on the age levels. The adults wanted to prolong young age as long as possible in their lives, adopting young people's style in all they did, while young people tended to consider themselves "adults", and autonomous, at the age of 14- 15 already. We now tend to consider "young" both a child of ten and an adult of thirty.

This may be an explanation for the present good relationship between generations: there seems to be no competition between adults' and youth culture.

Young people rejected any form of political commitment. They were (and are at present) characterized by a sort of loss of the memory of the past, and of expectations, plans, for their future. The present seems to be the unique psychological time dimension of their life.