A territorial reading of households and families changes in Italy over the last 50 years

Abstract

In recent decades, Italy has experienced significant family transformations, the patterns of formation, dissolution and reconstitution have become more heterogeneous and family boundaries more ambiguous. Population aging and the increase in relationship instability are associated with the consolidation of new family forms, and same-sex unions have been legally recognized (Cirinnà Law, N. 76 /2016).

The aim of the work is to study the changes in household/family types in Italy over the past half-century, by means of cartographic representation for a territorial reading of household/family models. The structure transformation is described using census data, from which types for smaller spatial units are constructed and compared in a time series.

The territorial analysis is carried out considering Provinces and Metropolitan Cities (MCs) as spatial units. The largest Municipalities tend to ‘drag’ the entire provincial area, for this reason an intermediate layer is constructed: the largest Municipalities are extrapolated from the Provinces/MCs and treated as separate territorial units.

Compared to the past, there is a decline in the traditional family and a consolidation of other forms. The different household/family types (e.g. classic nuclear family, one-person households, lone parent families) are represented on maps to display the evolution over time, to underline extreme values, to make visual comparisons in order to highlight territorial differences or whether there are similarities in household/family patterns across different areas of the country.