Childhood in Italy: A Family Affair

Childhood in Italy:A Family Affair

Cinzia Conti and Giovanni B. Sgritta1

A country in transition

A land of solid and jealously maintained traditions deposited in the customs ofcenturies of history, Italy at the start of the third millennium is also a country inprofound and rapid transformation. The demographic ‘crust’ registers andreflects these changes noticeably, often well ahead of culture and socialconscience. In the last decades of the century we have just left behind us thepopulation has changed, families have changed, individuals have changed inboth quantity and quality: the elderly, women, young people, children. Theaverage annual increase of the population has greatly diminished, passing from4.4 per thousand inhabitants in the period from 1971-81 to the 0.4 of the twosuccessive decades. Consequently, the structure of the population has alsochanged.

At the beginning of the 1980s children (0-14 years) were just under a quarter(22.6%) of the population while at the end of 2000 they were reduced to justover 14%, with a decrease of over eight percentage points; which, in absolutevalue, is equal to a net loss of about 4.5 million children. In the meantime, thegrowth in the number of the elderly has continued. Those over 65 were littleunder 7.5 million in 1981 (13.1% of the total) and around 10.5 million in 2000(18%), thus registering an increase of over 3 million individuals. While at thebeginning of the period there were 57.9 elderly people over the age of 65 per100 children under the age of 14, at the end of it the ratio has been inverted andtoday there are 124 elderly people per 100 children (Table 1). Since fertility hasnot increased while life-expectancy has increased a great deal the two indexeshave tended to widen further. This trend is common to all the Italian regions butis much greater in the North than in the South since the fertility levels in theselatter regions, while low, are still higher than in the rest of the country.Consequently, against a national average equal to 14.4%, the percentage of 1 The first part of the report is written by G.B. Sgritta. The second part (from Spaceand time) is written by C. Conti.

Children's Welfare in Ageing Europe

276

children under the age of 14 is equal to 17.3% in the regions of southern Italy,the Mezzogiorno (Southern Italy) and to only just over 12% in those of theNorth, where there are by now more than 154 elderly people (aged over sixty-five) per 100 children.

The entire demography of the country has therefore changed at the thresholdof the Third Millennium. Not only births but marriages have decreased and alsoin this case there are marked differences between the different geographic areasof the country. Considering fertility rates by age of the mother and taking as areference the age of 26, in 1975 1000 women of that age gave birth to 163children, while twenty years later the figure only just reaches 74; there is noneed to add that this trend towards a decline in births involves women of allfertile ages. By now, only a minority have three or more children while themodel of one or two children is more and more common.

As far as marriages are concerned, in the course of the past decade they havegone from 320,000 (annual average) at the beginning of the 1980s to 280,000 atthe end of the 1990s and in the meantime the average age at marriage hasincreased both for men (29.9) and women (27.1). Since the number of birthsoutside marriage is still very low in Italy compared with the average of the otherEuropean countries it follows that the rise in the average age at the firstmarriage has a decisive effect on the overall fertility levels.

Table 1. Population structure. Selected indicators, 1980-2001.

Age classes’ distribution % Indexes

Years 0-14 15-64 65+ 80+Elderly/childrenratio (a)

Dependency ratio

(b)

Elderly/adult ratio

(c)1.1.19801.1.19901.1.19981.1.2000

22.616.814.614.4

64.468.568.067.6

13.114.717.418.0

2.13.14.13.9

57.987.6

119.0124.5

55.446.047.147.9

20.321.525.626.6

At 1.1.2001 per main geographic divisionNorth-WestNorth-EastCentreMezzogiornItaly

12.512.613.017.314.4

68.167.567.266.967.4

19.419.819.815.818.2

4.44.84.63.34.1

154.8157.0152.091.1

127.0

46.948.048.849.648.4

28.529.329.423.627.1

Source: Istat, Annuario statistico italiano, 2001, Roma, 2002a.(a) 65+/0-14 (%)(b) 0-14 & 65+/15-64 (%)(c) 65+/15-64 (%)

COST A19: Italy

277

In particular, however, it is the families that have changed in terms of size andin their structure; and there have been changes in the roles, the condition of theindividuals and the relative relationships within the families. In 1983, accordingto a survey by the National Statistical Institute, households composed of asingle person were just 13% of the total of Italian families; those formed by acouple with children were almost 58%, couples without children little more than18%, families composed of a single parent with children 7% and extended fami-lies little less than 3%. At the end of the 1990s the results of the MultipurposeSurvey reflect a completely different situation. What is particularly striking isthe increase in households composed of a single person that have grown from13 to 21.7%, the decrease of couples with children that have fallen to 46.6%(they were 58%!) and the reduction of extended families (1.2% in 1998); where-as the percentage of couples without children (20.1%) and that of one-parentfamilies (8%) has stayed virtually unchanged from 1983 to today (Table 2).

Table 2. Households by typology, 1988, average 1993-94 and 1998 (absolute values inthousands).

1988 1993-94 1998Typologies a. v. % a. v. % a. v. %Non-family householdsOne person

One-family householdsWithout other persons, of which:- Couples without children- Couples with children- Single parent with children With other persons, of which:- Couples without children- Couples with children- Single parent with children

Two or more-family households

Total

4,1163,832

15,50914,7163,5349,8101,372

79316953589

247

19,872

20.719.3

78.074.117.849.46.94.00.92.70.4

1.2

100.0

4,3794,369

15.65414,8663,8639,4631,567

788210469109

272

20,665

22.921.1

75.871.918.745.77.63.81.02.30.5

1.3

100.0

5,0004,594

15,95015,0794,1459,3771,557

871245508118

260

21,210

23.621.7

75.271.119.544.27.34.11.22.40.6

1.2

100.0Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle Famiglie, Famiglie, soggetti sociali econdizioni dell’infanzia, 1998.

The size of the family has also changed considerably, with a great decrease inthe number of large families: those with five members, for example, were16.8% in 1983 and have dropped to just 6% in 1998, while those with four havegone down from 31% to 21%; in both cases there are noticeable variationsbetween the regions of the North and those of the South. Couples with a single


278

child have increased, those with two children have remained almost unchangedand those with three or more children have decreased (Tables 3 & 4).

Table 3. Couples with children by number of children, 1988, average 1993-94 and 1998(absolute values in thousands).

1988 1993-94 1998Number of children a. v. % a. v. % a. v. %One childTwo childrenThree childrenFour or more children

Total

4,3484,4961.310396

10,550

41.242.612.43.8

100.0

4,4344,3031,116276

10,129

43.842.511.02.7

100.0

4,5554.3061,006214

10,081

45.242.710.02.1

100.0Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle Famiglie, Famiglie, soggetti sociali econdizioni dell’infanzia, 1998.

So, families are different: smaller and smaller, with fewer members and not somany children; and families, couples or singles, are ‘ageing’ more and more,due to longer life expectancy and the rise in divorces and separations. Mainly,however, families are ‘different’ because of the changes in the conditions oflife, the roles, that their members play in them in the course of the life cycle.

Table 4. One-family households by type and main geographical division, 1998 (per 100families of the same area).

TypologiesGeographicaldivisions Couples with

childrenCoupleswithoutchildren

One-parent(male)

One-parent(female)

Total

North WestNorth EastCentreSouthIslands

Italy

56.858.858.667.666.9

61.2

31.530.031.322.321.9

28.0

2.11.71.41.51.7

1.7

9.69.58.78.59.5

9.1

100.0100.0100.0100.0100.0

100.0Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle Famiglie, Famiglie, soggetti sociali e condi-zioni dell’infanzia, 1998.

COST A19: Italy

279

In the lower part of the life cycle there has been an increase in the number ofyoung people who continue to live at home with their parents even beyond theage of 30, either working or studying, while there has been a decrease in thepercentage of young people aged 20-24 who have already formed a family oftheir own, possibly with children. In the higher part, on the other hand, there hasbeen an increase in the number of families in which both members of the coupleare elderly and those composed of a single elderly member, mainly female.Finally, the ‘new families’ have also increased; free unions, those formed bysingles (not widows or widowers), by single parents (not widows or widowers)and recomposed families, formed by the union of people, one or both, with aprevious marriage behind them, with or without children.

The family’s protectorate

Considering the overall changes of the Italian demography in the last decades,the delay with which children move out of the parental household and formtheir own family is particularly relevant. In the past the transition to adulthoodtook place according to a pre-established order; it concluded a relatively briefperiod of preparation for life (childhood) and flowed into a series of events thatfollowed one another at short intervals. In the span of a few decades, thissequence has been upset. Marriage is taking place later, fertility is decreasing,studies are continuing to a greater and greater age, and the average age atleaving home has increased.

In Europe, according to the European Community Household Panel, in the16-30 age group young people who stay on with their parents are 44.7%. Thispercentage is however the average between the decidedly high levels in thecountries of the South (Italy 65.1%, Spain 59.1%, Portugal 56.3%, Greece42.9%) and the much lower rates of the Nordic countries (Finland 22.6%,Denmark 24.7%, Sweden 34%), with the countries of central Europe to someextent in an intermediate position (UK 34%, The Netherlands 25%, France 41%and Germany 33%).

A preliminary analysis of this data shows that it is not just the reflection ofthe different incidence of unemployment rates in the North and South. In fact,after taking into account the educational level and the labour market position thedifferences between the two groups are still almost unchanged. Longer in theSouth and shorter in the North, the residence of young people in the parentalhome inevitably reflects on their living arrangements. An analysis conducted ondata of the European Panel is particularly illuminating in this respect. Dividingthe youth population of eleven European countries into four typologies – single,with and without children; partnered, with and without children – the resultsfully confirm the gap between the two models. At age 15, there are few


280

differences because virtually all young people are single and childless in everycountry. Significant differences between countries start opening up around age20 and begin to close again around age 30 (Iacovou, 1999: 11). Between theages of 20 and 29 the differences explode. In Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece andIreland, the proportion of males who at ages 25-29 are still single withoutchildren is almost thirty percentage points higher than in the North (Denmark,the Netherlands, UK, France, Luxembourg, Belgium), respectively 73.7% and45.2%. And the gap is also evident in the remaining typologies. Males of thesame age class who live with a partner (married or not) without having childrenare just 11.8% in the South and 30.1% in the North; those who live with apartner and have children are 14.4% in the South and 24.6% in the North. Onthe other hand there are no differences as far as concerns the proportion ofsingle with children which is identical and practically non-existent in bothcontexts (0.2%). Where women are concerned, although not so wide the gap isstill considerable. The women in the South between ages 25-29 who still arestill single without children are more than double those in the North: 49.2% vs.23.4%; after which the ratio is inverted and the women of that age who live inthe state of partnered (with and without children) and single with children arerespectively 30.8%, 39% and 6.9% in the North and 17.6%, 30.8% and 2.4% inthe South.

In this panorama Italy is in a somewhat singular position. For both the 20-24and 25-29 age groups, there is no other country of the South that has such a highproportion of young people, both men and women, still living in the state ofsingle without children: 98.2% and 78.7% of men in the 20-24 and 25-29 agegroups and 90.2% and 54.7% of women in the two respective age groups.Accordingly, such a high share of young Italians who live as singles in thisphase of their lives can only correspond, the total being equal to 100, to relati-vely low percentages – both with respect to the southern countries and, evenmore so, to those of the North – of young people who live with a partner oranyway have children although they do not cohabit. And in fact, with a fewexceptions, for both men and women, the proportion of young people in Italybetween the ages of 20 and 29 who live with a partner, with or without children,or anyway who have children, is the absolute lowest in Europe. The only case inwhich Italy is set above the average of the southern countries as regards thetypology of ‘partnered without children’ is for women between the ages of 25-29. Just under 20% of young Italian women of this age are in this situationcompared with an average of 17.6% in the southern countries as a whole.

The difference is quite small but not without interest, considering that inItaly, just as in the other Southern countries, the proportion of young peoplewho are cohabiting is very low (the great majority of women who live with apartner are legally married) and that in the 30-34 age group the proportion ofmarried women is even higher than the average of the northern countries; that

COST A19: Italy

281

said, this fact suggests at least three considerations: first, that in Italy youngpeople if and when they leave the parental home do so almost exclusively to getmarried and not to cohabit; second, that the age at marriage is relatively high(given that in the preceding 25-29 years age group women with a partner and nochildren are just 4.6% and those with a partner who have children are only4.5%); third, that having children tends to be postponed to an older age. Thesethree situations sum up the singularity of the Italian case both in comparisonwith the countries of the EU as a whole and in comparison with the othersouthern countries. More than in other nations, in Italy young people remain inthe parental home for protracted periods. Almost all, if not all research carriedout in Italy during the past decades has found the same characteristics.

‘Long’ passagesIn every country the fundamental institutions which mark the transition fromchildhood and adolescence to adulthood are family, school and work. Each ofthem is capable of encouraging or slowing down the conclusion of the journey;the result depends on their characteristics and their operation but above all ontheir interaction. A particular organisation of family life will probably tend toreflect, positively or negatively, on the times and modes in which the educa-tional course is accomplished and vice-versa; just as the opportunities for youngpeople to enter the labour market will tend to reflect both on the educationsystem and on the family, lengthening or shortening the duration of the timespent in them according to circumstances. In Italy and the other countries in theMediterranean area, these three means of access to adulthood are, so to speak,‘long’. From the family to the school, from the school to the labour market, thetransition to adulthood is fated to accumulate additional delays and inefficien-cies by means of a ‘snowball’ process that increases or expands at a rapidlyaccelerating rate. What is striking, however, is not the way in which for good orill each of these institutions carries out its own role but the consistency anduniformity of their action. The behaviour of the families absorbs and justifiesthe inefficiencies of the education system and the latter acts as a cushion againstthe malfunction of a labour market that is extraordinarily difficult for the youngto break into.

As a matter of fact, in the southern European countries the support of youngpeople is a ‘family affair’; the education system, the labour market and thesystem of state guarantees take it for granted a priori that the greatest burdenmust be shouldered by the family and act accordingly. But, while it is true thatfamily solidarity makes it possible to face the economic difficulties resultingfrom the long time that young people have to wait before entering the labourmarket, this is only one side of the coin. The other side is that the protective


282

action carried out by the family also risks producing socially undesirableeffects. Even admitting that families are able to cushion the negative effects oftheir younger members’ unemployment in the short-medium term, they cannotsubstitute state intervention in each and every way; in the long run, the overallimplications for youth well-being can only be adverse both with regard to thelabour market (dependence on the family and social relations as a preferentialmeans of finding employment; the readiness of the more disadvantaged subjectsto accept whatever job they are offered within the underground economy; theemployment of minors, etc.) and from the point of view of socio-demographicbehaviour; not to mention the spread of poverty which in some cases is a sort ofperverse effect of family solidarity.

Roads to transitionIn recent years, the solidaristic strength of the Italian family has been very muchput to the test. The economic crisis has increased the difficulties of the familiesin bearing the burdens that have traditionally been assigned to them; at the sametime, there has not been any substantial adjustment of state-provided reliefpolicies (Ginsborg, 1998: 433). The consequences have been a profound changein reproductive strategies and an increase in risk situations (poverty, depen-dence and social exclusion).

Between 1973 and 1981, births in fact declined enormously by about 30%.The second Italian Fertility Survey (1995-96) shows that the cohorts born in the1950s have progressively lengthened the interval between births, while thoseborn in the 1960s – now at the reproductive age – ‘have increased the propor-tions of unmarried subjects at every age and put off the birth of the first childeven longer, experiencing lower levels of fertility in all orders of birth (parity)’(De Sandre et al., 1997: 117-118). The results leave no shadow of a doubt onthe long-term trend: the proportion of women without children rises from the9% of the generation between the ages of 45-49 to the 17% of the generationaged between 35-39; the average age at the birth of the first child increasesconstantly in the course of time: age 25 for women born before 1955, 26 forthose of the 1956-60 cohorts and 27 for those born between 1961 and 1965;finally, the proportion of women aged 45-49 who have had a third child is 37%,among women aged 40-44, 32% and among the 35-39 year-olds, 25% (Ibid.:120-122).

In the light of these data one might think that the recent generations arerejecting marriage; but in fact this is not at all the case. Italian women, espe-cially the younger ones, have a very positive opinion of marriage; and the samecan be said for men. Interviewed on these questions, 85.9% of women aged 20-24 do not consider that ‘marriage is an outdated institution’; 93% think that

COST A19: Italy

283

‘more importance should be given to the family’ and 70% agree that ‘parentshave a precise duty to do their best for their children even at the expense of theirown well-being’ (Ibid.: 45). The attitude of young Italian women towardsmarriage is thus still strongly traditionalist (73.3% of unmarried young womenaged 20-24 would be against ‘cohabiting without considering marriage’ and71% do not consider it acceptable to ‘cohabit instead of marrying’). It would beimpossible to explain otherwise why, in all the research carried out in the pastthirty years, the family has not only remained firmly at the top of the hierarchyof the things that young people consider ‘very important’ in life but has beenthe only item of the scale, together with friends and leisure, that has becomestronger in the course of time (de Lillo, 1993: 74). In general the ‘private’sphere is still very important for the young Italians of the 90s; more thanstudying, social commitment and political participation which distinguished theprevious decades (de Lillo, 1997: 344-345).

Young Italian men and women do not reject either marriage or the family;sooner or later (above all later) they get married and have children (maybe onlyone). The point is that in order to embark on this undertaking they lay downcertain conditions: they require greater guarantees, they want to begin therelationship as a couple in conditions of greater security and stability; at thesame time they do not reject procreation but put off reproductive choices untilthey have reached those targets which make it possible for them to face theparental role with greater tranquillity and responsibility. They are thereforemore ‘conservative’ than ‘renunciatory’. How otherwise can we explain thereplies that young people gave to the question ‘what conditions are necessaryfor getting married’, in the second Fertility Survey? More than their oldercontemporaries and in surprisingly high proportions, unmarried women betweenthe ages of 20-24 in fact subordinated their eventual matrimonial choice to‘completing their own and their partners’ studies’ (over 60%), to both membersof the couple having ‘an adequate job’ (about 90%) as well as ‘having a homeof their own’ (77%), preferably their own property (40%) and nicely decorated(28.5%); with the addition, as a corollary, of the further condition that the newunion should not be burdened with the responsibility of looking after theirparents (30%) (De Sandre, 1997: 84).

Unless they are all ‘rationalisations’ which discount the objective difficultiesof the employment and housing situation, these replies reflect a basic attitudewhich is stubbornly guarantee-minded and ‘familialistic’, perfectly in line more-over with the trends and behaviour current in many contexts of the country’ssocial life, from work to the family; in any case, they express the difficultyyoung Italians have in venturing down the road of the transition to adulthoodwith those healthy doses of irresponsibility and self-assurance that are theindispensable equipment for facing any new experience. It is difficult to saywhat counts more: whether the fear of a future which objectively has become


284

more and more opaque and unpredictable for the new generations (because ofthe uncertainty of finding a job, the difficulties of being parents, the growinginstability of conjugal relations) or the fear of leaving a place within theparental family which, although at the price of some small renunciations, avoidstraumatic breaks in the continuity of the life cycle and in any event guaranteesthe satisfaction of basic needs.

The fact is that in this way a perverse mechanism is set in motion; each ofthe institutional actors who take part in the mise en scene of the transitionprocess to adulthood contribute, even though unintentionally, to produce anunwanted result: young people because they postpone the formation of a familyand procreation sine die with demographic outcomes that in the long run cannotbe sustained by society as a whole; the family, because like it or not it offers asafe and, according to the means available, comfortable shelter for the childrenwho decide to stay on at home; the education system, because it permits anexcessive waste of resources, does not manage to contain the actual duration ofeducation within limits and does not promote effective links with the labourmarket; this last, because it does not create enough and/or suitable opportunitiesof employment for young unemployed people; politics and the welfare system,finally, because they do not do enough to resolve these problems and, by notoffering adequate support to families with children and to young people, end up‘aggravating the solidaristic function of the family system abnormally,overburdening the parents and clipping young people’s wings in their transitionto adulthood’ (Livi Bacci, 1997: 1005).

The postponement syndromeIn recent decades a model of life has developed among young Italians; ac-cording to this, as M. Livi Bacci summarises, ‘the conclusion of education is anindispensable requisite for finding a job; having a steady job – and accom-modation available – is needed for the family’s independence; this precedes thedecision to live as a couple which is in its turn preliminary to making repro-ductive decisions. Each of these intervals – at the tail-end of this century – hasbeen growing longer’ (Livi Bacci, 1997: 1007). Inevitably, the transition toadulthood has been postponed and more and more young people continue tolive for longer and longer periods in the parental home. Recently the pheno-menon has taken on a worrying dimension which is unequalled in any otheradvanced country (apart from the case of Spain, a country with which there aremany points of contact).

The last wave of the Multipurpose Family Survey photographs the situationup to 1998 and documents a wide number of characteristics of young peoplewho still live with their parental families. In Italy today, young people aged 20-

COST A19: Italy

285

24 who live in the parental home are 89%, those of the next age group (aged 25-29) 59.5% and those aged 30-34, 22.8%. In comparison with the results of the1990 survey this data shows surprising dynamics; eight years earlier therespective proportions were far lower: 79.6%, 39% and 13.7% (Table 5). Theincreased length of time spent in the family applies to all areas of the countryand both males and females; at every age the percentage of young women stillliving in the parental home is lower than their male contemporaries; but the rateof growth of the phenomenon is greater for women than for men in all ageclasses (Sabbadini, 1999: 18).

Table 5. Young people aged 18 to 34 in the parental family by age class and sex (per100 young people of the same age).

Age classesYear and sex 18-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 Total

Males & Females19901998

Males19901998

Females19901998

96.898.6

98.899.2

94.897.9

79.689.0

88.494.0

70.883.8

39.059.5

50.071.9

28.146.4

13.722.8

17.830.4

9.615.4

51.859.1

59.167.0

44.551.1

Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle Famiglie, Famiglie, soggetti sociali econdizioni dell’infanzia, 1998.

What is striking, however, is that the main reason given by the young people(male or female makes no difference) who continue to live at home is, simply,that it suits them. ‘It suits me, I have my freedom’, reply 48.1% of theinterviewees. Evidently, the objective obstacles (continuing their studies, thelack of work and of a place to live) have a very important place, but this is notwhat matters. In fact, they predominate only in the younger age groups (aged18-19). Then, as the years go by, either because these reasons are no longervalid or because it is convenient at a certain point to ‘make a virtue of necessity’or ‘put a good face on things – as they say – the attitude changes, at least as faras words are concerned, and instead of fuelling their feelings of frustration theytry to come to terms with the existing situation and end up by convincingthemselves that living at home is not so bad after all. Thus, the reasons whichwould hinder or not encourage leaving home are above all subjective ones:


286

69.8% in the 25-29 age group and 75.3% in the 30-34 age group (compared,respectively, with 56.4% and just 46.9% of answers which mentioned objectiveobstacles). Thus, where the first are higher the second are lower and vice-versa.

Since numerous studies and research have reached similar results in recentyears, the conviction has progressively grown that the ‘postponement syndro-me’ cannot be interpreted sic et simpliciter as a consequence of a culturaltradition which assigns the family an important protective function towards thechildren, even when these have already become adults. There is also this,naturally; but it is not the only cause. According to some scholars, thisphenomenon is rather the result ‘of a radical transformation of the Italian familyin a “modern” sense during the last decades’; a transformation of the inter-personal relations between parents and children which have made it possible forthe former ‘to adapt to the cohabitation of two generations’ and to the latter to‘negotiate large areas of freedom within the family’ (Cavalli, 1993: 212).Basically, instead of becoming emancipated from the family, young Italianadults are emancipated in the family.

Even if it does not give a complete explanation of all the matters consideredso far, this thesis rightly emphasises that there has been a profound change inrelations within the family. Many of the attitudes and ways of behaving – thechildren’s and the parents’ – that have been certified by recent surveys wouldhave been unthinkable only twenty or thirty years ago. The picture of the familywhich emerges clearly from these surveys is that of ‘a golden prison’ (Menniti,1999: 16). A prison, because like it or not there is no escape from those fourwalls; golden, because in spite of this young adults enjoy great freedom withinthe family; some of them can do almost anything they like without encounteringobstacles of any kind: the family does not ask, it gives; so that in the end thebalance is in credit and staying at home brings more advantages thandisadvantages. The young adults have a space of their own where they do asthey like and from which their parents are often excluded; they plan what theydo in complete freedom with few or no restrictions; they can associate withwhoever they like without any interference from their parents; interpersonalconflicts are reduced to a minimum; if the families can afford it their childrenare even given a relative financial independence, a kind of ‘subsistence income’which the parents never fail to provide and which guarantees the young adult anadequate degree of buying power; last but not least, the young adults who havea job and live with their parents contribute very little to the family ménage.

Parents and children: a mechanism of complicityThe 1998 Multiscope Survey put a series of questions to the young intervieweesto evaluate the degree of autonomy and the material opportunities that they had

COST A19: Italy

287

within the family. The questions regarded the possibility of ‘inviting friendshome without asking the parents’ permission’, of ‘there being no problemsabout coming home whenever they liked’; of ‘staying the night away fromhome without letting their parents know’; of ‘inviting friends home when theirparents were away’; and further, if they received money and how much; if theycontributed with their possible income to the family budget and if so how much;if they had a car or a motorcycle at their disposal; if they had a bank account intheir name; and if there were conflicts with their parents on certain crucialaspects of life. The picture that emerges shows that there is a certain ‘accom-modation’ between parents and children; a kind of unwritten pact which es-tablishes the rules of behaviour on some essential points of cohabitation in thesame house. The impression is that in most cases the children continue torespect certain conventions – probably the same ones that the parents madethem obey in the socialisation phase – without however giving up their auto-nomy.

Another survey, carried out by the Institute of Research on the Population(Irp) on a sample of young adults (20-34 years) still living with their parents,showed that although they saw many of the rules and restrictions – from comingto meals on time to keeping one’s room tidy – as limitations, they usuallyrespected them. The conclusion the researchers came to was that ‘young peoplewho live with their parents are adapting very well to a situation that iscomfortable, reassuring and without responsibilities; to grow up in a compliantenvironment which adapts to the requirements of the young adult, attenuatingevery form of criticism and conflict, makes it objectively difficult and on thewhole almost unreasonable to leave home. Where could conditions be betterthan those one enjoys living at home with Mum and Dad?’ (Menniti, 1999: 18).

Many of these young people also receive money from their parents; abouthalf of them do not contribute to the family expenses because they are notworking; and the ones with a job in any case make a limited contribution; morethan 70% of the interviewees said that they had the use of a car, either thefamily car or one of their own; many of them have a motorbike or a moped andas many have a bank account (Istat, 1998a). Furthermore, as different surveysshow, the cohabitation with their parents does not create particular problems.They live in a precarious but sheltered situation; possibly laden with un-certainties and inconsistencies compared with the expectations they cultivatedin the past but lived today in a relatively serene way on both the fronts ofinterpersonal relations. Conflicts are not very frequent and, moreover, theydecrease as the age goes up. Even continuing to stay at home, young Italianadults seem therefore to have achieved a kind of ‘squaring of the circle’. Inthese conditions, there are no particular circumstances that encourage youngpeople to hurry up and leave home; certainly not the end of their studies, norgetting a job, which for many of them is evidently perfectly compatible with


288

staying on at home; not even the idea of going to live on their own with his/herpartner (only for a very small percentage is this a way out). The only stimulusthat could induce them to cut the umbilical cord for the second time is marriage.And in fact the Second Fertility Survey shows that among young people agedbetween 30 and 34 a little under half had left home to get married and only 5%to cohabit (De Sandre et al., 1997: 79).

With regard to the parents, they do not put great pressure on their children togo their own way and face the choices and responsibilities of life independently.Often the question does not even arise; asked if having the children stay on athome was a problem only 8% answered in the affirmative: for 38% it is ‘anormal phenomenon’ and for 54% even ‘a pleasure’ (Bonifazi et al., 1999: 80).Furthermore, to the question of which were the main reasons for which theson/daughter did not want to go and live on his/her own, a good 43% of theparents declared without mincing words that ‘they would have to give up theirhome comforts’ and, apart from the list of the usual objective ills (lack of work,cost of housing, etc.) there were also those who admitted candidly that theirson/daughter ‘did not want to be independent’ (17%), s/he ‘is not used tomaking sacrifices or giving things up’ (7%) or ‘take on responsibilities’ (7%) or‘doesn’t want to upset us’ (3%) (Ibid.: 81). More than half of the parentsinterviewed are likewise convinced that their children will miss life in thefamily when they leave.

Another curious fact that has emerged from the Irp Survey comes from theanswers to two specific items on the advantages and disadvantages, both for theparents and for their children, of the latter leaving home: 55% reply that therewould be no advantage, apart from fewer expenses (21%) and less work (17%);only 12% of the answers indicated that the parents would receive some benefitsin terms of greater freedom and greater privacy (5%). At any rate, nothing muchcompared with the disadvantages that the ‘loss’ of the son/daughter wouldinvolve in affective terms (50%), worries (24%), loneliness and sadness (34%);only 20% of the answers indicate that no disadvantage (for the parents) wouldresult. Objectivity or excessive paternalism? It is difficult to say; anyway,according to the parents, their son/daughter would not gain much either ifhe/she chose to leave home and become independent: 26% of the answersadmitted that s/he would gain in freedom of choice and decision, 27% infreedom of movement, 20% in a greater sense of responsibility; but there arealso those who place these ‘conquests’ in the column of disadvantages and only12% of the answers indicate that this eventual decision would not result in anydisadvantage at all for their son/daughter (Ibid.: 83).

COST A19: Italy

289

The private and the public

The Italian family has thus changed a great deal. Certainly, it is not what it wasbefore, where attitudes and behaviour like those we have met in this rapidreview would not have been possible. In other words, the slowing down ofyoung Italians’ transition to adult life is not a ‘metastasis’ which has spread inthe traditional body of the Italian family; it is a new phenomenon, born andgrowing within a new organism. And yet, one must take care not to draw toohurried conclusions from this conviction. For a start, the changes that have over-taken the family are not necessarily to be interpreted as positive or ‘modern’.Modern with respect to what, to what model? If the standard is the family in theother advanced countries, the comparison does not stand up. Those families aremodern too, and perhaps – without the perhaps – they have been so for muchlonger than the Italian family (if, that is, the Italian family has ever becomemodern); and yet in those countries we are light years away from finding even apale image of the ‘postponement syndrome’ of the transition to adulthood whichis so widespread and deep-seated in Italy. And then, modern in what sense? Ifmodern means flexibility and ability to adapt to changing circumstances, thenItalian families have modernity to spare, in the sense that precisely thoseattributes are the most important heritage, the special feature of their culturaltradition. If instead it means the capacity to promote the exchange ofgenerations and encourage young people to leave their parental families andbecome independent, thus helping them to become ‘citizens’, then the Italianfamily is anything but modern; on the contrary, it is more traditional than ever.

However, even this is a somewhat forced conclusion. The truth probably liessomewhere in between. On the one hand, it is certainly true that with regard totheir children’s transition to adulthood the behaviour of Italian families actsmore as a brake than an accelerator. The data that we have considered showsclearly that the family interprets its social function in absolutist terms; as if itwere the only bulwark in defence of its members’ well-being, the final rampartbeyond which lies nothing or almost nothing. The impression is that amechanism of ‘complicity’ has been established between parents and children.The young adults who continue to live at home with their parents are notunhappy with this situation; for many of them, on the contrary, it is quitenormal: it is no coincidence that 64% of the young people interviewed in the Irpsurvey declared that if they left home ‘the greatest disadvantage for Mum andDad would be the feelings of affective loss, loneliness and sadness due to theirabsence’ (Palomba, 1999: 32). This sensation would not be possible if it werenot fuelled by the corresponding expectations on the part of the parents, forwhom their children’s independence is seen as a loss, the end of a role ofprotection and control that Mum and Dad do their best to hold on to for as longas possible. A kind of reciprocal ‘affective blackmail’ in fact, which after all


290

suits each of the actors in the play but, as time goes on and beyond certainlimits, risks turning into a comedy or a tragedy.

Even though it is well-founded, this impression is, however, only one aspectof reality. The way in which families interpret their social function does notspring from nothing; in other words, Italian families are not the way they aresimply because they choose to be so: they behave in this way because, at least toa great extent, there is no reason or alternative for them to act differently. It isnot always possible to make different moves in the economic, political andsocial chess game. It is difficult to establish what counts most in the mix offactors which take part in the process: culture, tradition, family solidarity, socialcontrol, Latin sentimentalism, the psychology of the actors or the atavic absenceof a policy of family support worthy of this name, the presence of a welfaresystem that transfers ‘more to the fathers than to the sons’ (Rossi, 1997), theeconomic situation, the organisation of the education system, the dramaticscarcity of jobs or the inadequacy of employment instruments.

The question is destined to remain without response. Each of these elementsis certainly capable of influencing the course of events, each of these tesseraecontributes to make up the final picture of the mosaic although none of them,taken singly, is sufficient to produce that result. If one really must identify aprotagonist or a defendant, all considered it would be unjust to put families andyoung people on trial. And even more than unjust it would be contrary to thetruth of the matter. Anything but protagonists; young people and families are ifanything the ‘designated victims’ of what has happened in the past twenty-thirtyyears and of its consequences which will come to maturity in the next. Thegrave delay with which young people in Italy come out of a condition of‘captivity’ which is prolonged to pathological limits is anything but anunexpected phenomenon. It is simply the conclusion of an event that has beenabundantly announced.

The ‘youth question’ in Italy has been off the political agenda for too long;and for too long politicians and policy-makers have trusted in the family’smiracle-working powers and its endless solidaristic energies. But it is above allin correspondence with the start of the economic crisis in the middle of the 70sthat one notices a great penalisation of the new generations in the distribution ofresources. Around this date, which acts as a watershed between two distinctphases of the development of the welfare state, a decisive turning point wasreached – not just in Italy – in the collective attention towards the differentmembers of the population. In the space of a few years, in place of the trend ofthe first post-war decades in favour of the younger age classes and of action insupport of the formation of a family, an abrupt change of course occurred. Thetemporal horizons of politics have become ever shorter and narrower since then;the flow of public resources changed destination, or rather continued to followthe ‘first generation’ of welfare beneficiaries, guaranteeing their prospects of

COST A19: Italy

291

future well-being. Inevitably, as a consequence of this redesigning of thewelfare state in step with its own ageing (and electoral) interests, the cost-benefit balance among generations has worsened, transfers to families havediminished, child poverty rates have increased, youth unemployment hasincreased and entry into the labour market has been deferred; for a series ofreasons (demographic, economic and political), in Italy and the other southernEuropean countries these trends have been pushed to extremes (Sgritta, 1994b).

Given these conditions, it was inevitable that young people and familiesshould adapt, using up all the resources at their disposal; in some cases comingup with new solutions and in others simply resorting in exaggerated measure tothe store of material and affective instruments supplied by tradition; whichperhaps has contributed to aggravating the situation, giving rise to a ‘viciouscircle’, the real drama from which many young people and families must try toescape. In certain areas of southern Italy there are young people who, havingcome of age and formally become citizens, get ready to face life without anyreal prospect of finding a job or being free of their family; some of them, theworst cases, actually run the risk of finding themselves confined to a sort ofnever-ending social moratorium, passing without a break from adolescence topension, from dependence on the family to state assistance.

Many others, the majority, will presumably be spared this sad fate but atwhat cost? If thousands and thousands of young people stay too long in theprotective embrace of the family, grow up disappointed in promises that are notmaintained, acquire a welfare-dependent mentality, consume without producing,have fortuitous, impermanent relations with work; if these experiences unite anever-greater class of child-adults who get used to seeing themselves as ‘socialoutcasts’, as non-citizens, then it cannot be ruled out that – unless oneintervenes as soon as possible with effective measures – the costs in demo-graphy as in the economy and politics could be of incalculable gravity.

A reversed perspective: from young people to childhood

So far, our analysis has proceeded in reverse. We have begun at the end ratherthan at the beginning; instead of describing the normal course of events we havetried to grasp the result. The stage has been entirely taken up by young peopleand the analysis of the transition to adulthood. Nevertheless, this reversal isanything but a rhetorical artifice. In the Italian situation it is justified by at leasttwo fundamental reasons. The first, a practical one, is that we know much moreabout young people than about children. Although it has improved a great dealin recent years our knowledge of childhood is still incomplete, full of gaps andmostly indirect. Children are not usually the protagonists of the research thatconcerns them. Information on childhood is usually by proxy, a by-product, that


292

is, of data collected in interviews with their parents and the adults to whom theyare entrusted; in other cases, as in the studies on poverty or the standard ofliving, the information comes from research in which children do not appear asindividual subjects but as subordinate members (dependants) of the family.

The second reason that justifies the decision to proceed in this way isstrategic. The theory is that by starting from the conclusions rather than fromthe beginning of the socialisation process, one can get a clearer idea of thedecisive importance of the family, both in the life of the child and in that ofyoung people. This way of proceeding in reverse, in other words, provides amuch better key for interpreting the condition of childhood in Italy than theconventional perspective. In fact, it is legitimate to believe that the reasonswhich explain the phenomena we have examined in the preceding pages – thegreat delay in young people leaving the parental family, the reassuring andprotective context of the family environment, the nature of the relationshipbetween parents and children, the scanty presence of public assistance in thefamily sphere – neither act nor appear out of the blue at the beginning of acertain phase of the life cycle. Most likely, they are present and intervene duringthe whole growth process, starting from childhood. In Italy, childhood as asocial category is constructed in those conditions. In a situation, that is, wherethe family acts as the chief protagonist of the process of socialisation andgrowth: the welfare and care of the child depend on the family’s economicresources; the child’s behaviour and attitudes are explicable in relation to thoseof its parents; the times and places of childhood revolve around the times andplaces of the family. As a rule, public assistance is relegated to the backgroundand the child lives in a sort of ‘protectorate’ governed by the opportunities, thefinancial resources, the lifestyle, the choices and the rules established to a greatextent autonomously by the family.

‘Privatised childhood’2

Thus, if what we have noted in the youth condition is also present a fortiori inthe ages that precede it and the final result is just the effect of circumstancesthat act uniformly along the whole growing up process, then this theoryprovides us with the conceptual frame of reference within which the analysis ofthe condition of childhood in Italy can be placed. A picture that one can sum up

2 The concept of ‘privatised’ childhood is anything but new. In fact, P. Ariès hadalready noticed a process of progressive estrangement of the child from the publicsphere (Ariès, 1968). More recently, not dissimilar concepts have been proposed bothby J. Zinnecker, who speaks of ‘Verhäuslichung’ (Zinnecker, 2001) and by H. Zeiherwho speaks of ‘Verinselung’ (Zeiher, 2001). For a general analysis of these subjects seeJ. Qvortrup (2003).

COST A19: Italy

293

in the expression of ‘privatised’ childhood; a childhood, that is, which belongsalmost entirely to the family, upon which it depends with regard to quantity andquality, the number and quality of life, the structure of interpersonal relationsand the determination of the times and places of the socialisation process, thestandard of living and the opportunities for future success. There have beenchanges here too. Seen from the child’s point of view, in the last decade theproportion of children whose parents both work has increased; the proportion ofthose with a father who works and a mother who is a housewife has decreasedand children who live with a single parent have increased (Table 6). However,there are still great differences between one region and another; in the South, forexample, the majority of children still live in families where the mother is ahousewife and only a third have a mother who works.

Table 6. Children 0-13, by age classes and parent situation, 1988 and 1998 (per 100children).

Age classes0-5 6-10 11-13 Total

1988 1998 1988 1998 1988 1998 1988 1998Couples, both work 37.8 41.6 37.3 39.2 34.5 35.2 36.8 39.3He works, she ishousewife

48.6 39.8 48.3 41.9 47.9 43.5 48.4 41.3

Other situations 10.6 14.0 9.4 13.3 10.7 14.0 10.2 13.8One-parent 3.0 4.5 4.7 5.3 6.8 6.9 4.5 5.3Other - 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.3 0.1 0.2

Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo ‘Famiglia, soggetti sociali e condizionedell’infanzia’, 1998.

The ‘privatisation’ of childhood shows itself in the centrality of the maternalrole, both in general within the family group and in the child’s life. The father’srole in child-care is negligible, even when the woman works. Nevertheless,some incipient signs of change can be seen, at least in the younger couples. Ifone considers children between the ages of 0-2, 19.2% of the fathers feed theirchildren every day, 23.9% put them to bed, 15.7% dress them, 7.7% bath themand 18.4% change their nappies. However, these percentages are systematicallyhigher if the wife works. Paternal collaboration in the care of the childincreases, moreover, as the father’s educational level rises, in this case withoutappreciable differences between the various areas of the country. Thepredominant presence of the mother is also seen in other contexts of the child’slife; for example, following the children’s progress at school, keeping contactwith the teachers and supervising the children’s homework. As far as play is


294

concerned, the father’s involvement is greater than in care activities eventhough it is still less than that of the mother and decreases as the age of the childgoes up. 39.9% of the fathers of children aged 3-5 play with their child everyday: this percentage goes down to 24.4% when the child is aged 6-10 anddecreases further among the fathers of children aged 11-13 (9.9%). In this casepaternal involvement is inversely proportional to the level of education and theage of the parent: fathers with a secondary education play more with theirchildren than those with a higher academic qualification and young fathers playmore than older ones. In all cases, however, whether it is a question of everydaycare, school or play, the maternal role is still predominant compared with thepaternal one.

The ‘privatisation’ of childhood is a widespread model and the child’s life isalso organised in this way with regard to its care when it is not at home with itsparents. As the number of women who go out to work has increased, the care ofthe child in the hours when the parents are at work is a difficult problem,especially for the younger couples with small children who do not yet go toschool. The solution that is closest to hand and certainly the least expensive,given the proverbial scarcity of public services for early childhood, is to entrustthe child to the family of one or other of the parents (Table 7). The role of theextended family in the countries of southern Europe has been widely docu-mented. ‘In these countries – as Millar and Warman write – there is a strongsense of family privacy with an assumption that families should be left aloneand policy should be generally non-interventionist. However, this is not neces-sarily a privacy between spouses, or between parents and children. Rather it is aprivacy that exists within the extended family as a whole – so, for example,other family members are expected… to substitute for parental care’ (Millar andWarman, 1996: 47). In fact, as a rule, resorting to the grandparents is the setsolution when it is necessary to entrust the child to someone during the parents’working hours; either because there is no room in the public day nurseries orbecause admittance to the private ones, if and when they exist, is too expensivefor the majority of the population.

A secondary analysis of the Multiscope Family Survey data gives us aclearer picture of the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren.According to this survey, out of the 7.5 million grandparents with grandchildrenunder the age of 13, around 6 million, that is 79%, take care of their grand-children. There are various occasions in which this help is given and the carerelationship depends principally on the age of the grandparents. It is closerwhen the grandparents are younger (82.8% for those who are under the age of55) and less intense when the grandparents are older (62.7% of the grandparentswho are over the age of 75). As for the occasions where the role of thegrandparents becomes particularly important, we must mention those in whichthe grandparent takes the place of the parents when the latter are away at work

COST A19: Italy

295

and where services are lacking; this is particularly the case in the big cities andin the northern regions, where there are more women in the labour market. Infact, the grandparents who take on this responsibility are 38.2% in the northernregions against just 18.6% in those of the South. Furthermore, the recourse tothe grandparents is more frequent if they are pensioners, the younger they areand the smaller the grandchild to be cared for and obviously when thegrandparents live in the same block of flats or at least in the same town.

Table 7. Children entrusted every day to grandparents (who do/do not reside with them)or to paid staff by situation of mother, 1998 (per 100 children).

Motherhousewife

Motheroccupied

Motherhouse-wife

Motheroccupied

Motherhouse-wife

MotheroccupiedPeople to

whom childrenentrusted 0-2 3-5 6-10Grandparents, inresidence

Grandparents,non-resident

Paid staff

6.9

10.0

0.9

9.6

36.1

7.9

5.5

8.1

0.1

7.8

32.1

4.9

3.7

5.4

0.2

6.7

24.9

3.8Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo ‘Famiglia, soggetti sociali e condizionedell’infanzia’, 1998.

Naturally, the grandparents take over on many other occasions, less syste-matically or at irregular intervals; for example, when the parents travel or go onholiday or when they need to be away for short periods. The time that the childis entrusted to the grandparents also depends on the condition of the parents. Inparticular, on their age: it is the younger mothers who resort to this solutionmost often; then on the level of education: it is the better-educated mothers, thusthose that are more likely to have a job, who turn to the grandparents for help(30% of women with a secondary school diploma or a degree against 15% ofthe mothers with a primary school diploma; 37% of employed women against10% of housewives); while the grandparents’ help becomes absolutely essentialif the working mother is single (Romano, 2002).

Italy is in the world the country with the oldest population. Obviously thissituation is the direct consequence of the low fertility rate but we should notforget the fact that on average people are living longer. In the last twenty yearslife-expectancy has passed from 71.1 to 76.8 years for men and from 77.9 to82.9 for women. In Italy for every 100 children there are 130 old people. While


296

it is true that the last years of life can often be spent in quite precariousconditions and with disabilities that make continuous care and attentionnecessary, it is also true that the start of ‘effective’ old age has been pushedforward a great deal. The old-age index with the threshold fixed at 65 yearsseems completely inadequate to define the beginning of old age in thedeveloped countries. Italians aged 65 do not have an ‘elderly’ lifestyle. They areactive: many work, others have begun to study again, others have taken upsports or hobbies which they did not have time for in the past. Many are full-time grandparents, reversing the demographic and economic concept of the agepyramid: it is the widened apex that actively takes care of the ever-narrowerbase. The ‘privatisation’ of childhood, as we have seen, also characterises ourcountry with regard to the care of children when they are not with their parents.It is interesting to note from recent research that children particularly appreciatethe time spent with their grandparents, almost as if a solidarity and an under-standing that can transcend age has sprung up between two ‘weak’ segments ofthe population (Tonucci, 2002). In some way, children and old people areobstacles, burdens for a society whose frenetic rhythms of work and productionabsorb so much time and energy. Thus, left on the sidelines, they seem toestablish a deep understanding with one another based on having different,‘longer’ times at their disposal than those of working adults.

To a certain extent, the situation we have just described is the result of thelack of services for childhood, especially in the southern regions . However, thisis not the only reason. A recent survey carried out in the city of Rome, wherejust 10% of children under the age of 3 find a place in a municipal day nursery,shows that apart from the difficulty of finding a place in the public nurseries,mothers often have more confidence in alternative solutions, in practice‘domestic’ solutions under the direct control of the family. A good 35.4% of thefamilies interviewed had tried to enrol their child at a nursery but withoutsuccess or declared that they had not even tried because they knew that they didnot meet the entrance requirements. Another 33.5% replied, on the other hand,that they had not resorted to the services, for the simple reason that theypreferred to resolve the problem of child-care in the family. The remainder hadeither found more convenient solutions (closer to home or to their work) ordeclared that they did not think the quality of the municipal day nurseries washigh enough (Brazzoduro and Palminiello, 2002: 236). Thus, although in recentyears there has been an increase in the quota of parents who are convinced thatnursery school has an important socialising and educational function in the lifeof the child, there is still quite a large portion that has little confidence in theservices and thinks that it is preferable to keep the child at home or anyway tofind a solution in the family circle or with relatives.

This being the case, the figure of the grandparent is therefore a crucialsupport for the family, especially for young couples. In many cases, it would

COST A19: Italy

297

otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, for women to reconcile work outsidethe home with the care of the children and family responsibilities. This isprobably the reason why the rate of female employment drops so drastically,much more than in other countries, as the number of children increases.Balancing work with the care and upbringing of children, in the sense of beingable to work and at the same time have the children that one wants is a difficultundertaking everywhere. But in Italy it is more difficult than elsewhere. ‘ForItalian women, who already start from very low employment rates, the presenceof children is the coup de grace: the quota of working women with children,regardless of their number and age, is among the lowest in Europe’ (Zanatta,2002: 311).

According to Eurostat data, in 1998 the rate of employment in Italy forwomen aged between 25-49 years was equal to 52.5% for women withoutchildren but went down to 47% for women with one child aged between 0-5years, to 41.7% for those with two children (including at least one under the ageof 5 years) and to 31.6% for those with three children (including at least oneunder the age of 5 years). As a comparison, the average European values were,respectively, 67.3%, 55.7% and 37%. Thus, the woman’s desire to work ishampered by the difficulties involved in balancing the various aspects ofworking and family life once children arrive. ‘Amongst working women, thepercentage of mothers is steadily decreasing – in only eight years, thepercentage of married women with children who work has fallen by about 20points for those aged 25-29 years and by 11 for those aged 30-34 while therehas only been a very slight decrease in the percentage of housewives’ (Irp,1999: 47) (Table 8).

Table 8. Couples by work situation of partners and age classes of the woman, 1993-94(per 100 couples of the same age class of the woman).

Age classes Both work He works, she is housewife Other situations25-3435-4445-54

46.246.628.3

41.143.040.9

7.98.6

30.4 Source: Irp elaboration on Multiscope Survey data, 1999.

Perverse effects: fertility and poverty

In Italy, more than elsewhere, the family ‘regulates’ the life of individuals, theirprocreative decisions, the sharing of duties and responsibilities between menand women, the allocation of time among the different contexts of social life as


298

well as the organization of the children’s spaces and times. The family istherefore entrusted with an enormous power; a power inversely proportional tothe responsibilities assigned to the community services and the state institutions.This has some important consequences with regard to social structure and thecondition of childhood. Two in particular are worth mentioning. The first is theeffect that the excessive responsibility given to the family has on reproductivechoices. The second is the ‘perverse’ effect that this fact has on the distributionof poverty between families with (many) children and families without (or withfew) children.

To have a child is a rational choice; where ‘rational’ means relating themeans to the ends, calculating costs and benefits, advantages and disadvantages,taking into account all the circumstances, present and expected, in which thedecision is taken. Many different factors, material and non-material, within andoutside the family appear in the means inventory: financial and housingresources, time, interpersonal relations, career prospects, costs, timeliness andlast but not least the assistance (economic and in terms of services) given tofamilies with children. It is a fact that the birth of a child involves a consider-able increase in family expenses and thus, income being equal, a proportionalreduction of the family’s well-being. ‘Children have a greater impact on thestandard of living of the poorer families and progressively less on the richerones; these differences tended to increase considerably in the 1990s. In 1994 thefamilies who had lower levels of total expenses had to sustain increases of 55%for a child....’ (Drudi and Filipucci, 2002: 216). In Italy, the assistance providedby the State is almost ludicrously inadequate. Family transfers cover just a smallfraction of the expenses that families have to bear for bringing up their children.With regard to services, while those for children aged 3-5 (nursery schools) arefairly widespread and cover all or most of the demand, the situation is quitedifferent for the services devoted to children up to the age of 3 years. On anational average, not more than about 6% of those who belong to this age groupattend a day nursery, for a total of little more than 100,000 children. Moreover,the distribution of these services for infancy is somewhat unevenly distributedin the territory. Among the towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants, daynurseries are present in 95.6% of the towns in the North but in only 63.4% ofthose of the Mezzogiorno; the same is true with regard to other services aimedat this age group, such as school assistance and transport services, child mindersor day centres (Istat, 2000d: 474).

This being the case, when it comes to making reproductive choices coupleshave to count almost exclusively on their own resources or on those of theirimmediate family circle. The State’s contribution is practically non-existent, orat any rate has little influence and in fact is not usually counted among theparameters that govern this decision. Social reproduction is a ‘family affair’.The child is not a ‘public good’ but a private one. The burden of fertility falls

COST A19: Italy

299

entirely on the family’s shoulders and on women’s in particular and is incompetition with other requirements that are equally important: work, career,the family’s standard of living, the home, free time. Paradoxically, in Italy thefamily is given excessive importance and yet at the same time none. Excessivebecause it is the decision-maker, the deus ex machina of the reproduction ofsociety; because it is granted the supreme power to ‘regulate’ both the quantityand the quality of the child population and thus generational replacement. Noimportance, because the family is left completely to itself in this delicatefunction and not supported by adequate economic and social policies. Giventhese conditions, it is not surprising that fertility has fallen inexorably below thereplacement level.

Evidently, the reproductive choice has been sacrificed because it has clashedwith other interests and life plans of individuals and couples. Irrespective of theideal number of children they may have wanted, they have only given birth tothe children that economic conditions and family circumstances made itpossible for them to raise without making too many sacrifices and withoutjeopardizing other equilibriums. But this is just the point. In this game publicand private interests come into play and clash with one another. On the onehand there are the interests of the community, so that in the course of timegenerational replacement is guaranteed, with all that follows (fiscal tenability,pensions, assistance to the elderly, etc.) and on the other the interests of thecouple, who bear all the consequences of the choice and have the indisputableright to decide when and how many children to have and what standard of livingto guarantee to the new arrivals. Given the disparity of the forces in the field,the result is a foregone conclusion. The number of children per family has beenprogressively reduced, the number of brothers and sisters has diminished andthus the relative weight of the child population on the total (Table 9). So, littleby little, children have become commodities, ‘goods’ that have become rarerand rarer, both because of the lack of ‘purchasers’ willing to buy because theyare too expensive, too costly, almost luxury goods and because the symbolicmessage that society has carefully transmitted has made it quite clear that therewill be no help for families and no collective participation in the purchase andamortisation costs of these particular ‘goods’.

Apart from having an effect on total fertility and therefore on the total andrelative sum of the child population, the excess of responsibility that familiesbear generates a second perverse effect with regard to economic well-being; aneffect that we could summarize in this formula: as the family grows larger,resources being equal, the risk of poverty of its members increases. Once again,we find ourselves faced with a paradox. In principle, one might think that thegreater the number of family members, the greater the family’s ability to facethe problems of life. This is not actually so, or rather, it is not always the case.When only one member of the family is employed or at any rate receives an


300

income from transfers – which in Italy means in practice half of the families –the maxim that ‘there’s strength in numbers’ is no longer valid; on the contrary,the opposite is true: As the number of its members grows, in the absence ofcompensatory assistance, the family’s standard of living goes down propor-tionally. Family solidarity, the division of risks among many people, becomes a‘multiplier’ of poverty.

Table 9. Children up to 13 years old, by number of siblings and age classes, 1988 and1998 (per 100 children).

Age classesNumber ofsiblings 0-5 6-10 11-13 Total

1988 1998 1988 1998 1988 1998 1988 19980 36.8 39.1 16.5 19.3 14.0 16.0 24.1 26.71 45.9 46.5 55.7 57.0 52.1 56.5 50.8 52.52 13.7 11.7 20.9 18.1 24.0 21.9 18.7 16.23 or more 3.7 2.8 7.0 5.5 9.9 5.6 6.4 4.4


The Report on the State of the Nation prepared for 1999 by the National Insti-tute of Statistics dedicates a whole chapter to the poverty trend over the past 20years. The percentage of poor families increased progressively in the 1980s,reaching the highest level between 1987 and 1988 (over 14%). In the followingdecade, the incidence of poverty went down slightly: in 1998, 2,558,000families – amounting to 11.8% of the total number of families and to 7,418,000individuals – were poor (Istat, 2000d: 427). In 2000, according to the results ofthe survey on the consumption and income of Italian families, the poverty raterose again, reaching 12.3%: 2,707,000 families or 7,948,000 individuals (13.9%of the entire population) (Istat, 2001). In both cases, it is a question of howrelative poverty is measured – which, as is well-known, takes into considerationany inequality in the distribution of income (or consumer costs) more than theactual paucity of resources. In fact, if we pass from relative measurements to theabsolute ones calculated on the basis of a basket of goods and servicesconsidered essential for the standard of living of an Italian family, the povertyrate is much lower. In 1998, 4.4% of families fell below the level of absolutepoverty; in 2000, the percentage of families in conditions of absolute povertywent down slightly (4.3%).

In spite of the see-sawing poverty levels in the past two decades, someconstants are obvious, however. First, the gap between the incidence of poverty

COST A19: Italy

301

in the developed regions of the North and the more backward ones of the Southgrew steadily, with the exception of the last year. In 1998, more than 65% ofpoor families lived in the Mezzogiorno, as compared to 32.9% of the totalnumber of families resident in this area. In 2000, however, the percent compo-sition of poor families by geographic division was the following: 22% in theNorth, 15.3% in the Centre and 62.7% in the South of Italy, where more thanone family in five (23.6%) lives in conditions of relative poverty (as against5.7% in the North and 9.7% in the Centre).

The other constant regards family structure. In fact, in the whole periodunder review, the families with the highest levels of poverty are the large onesmade up of five or more members. In particular family units with three or moreminor children are those most exposed to the risk of poverty: in 1999, 27% on anational level and 37.2% in the Mezzogiorno. In 2001, the situation improvedslightly, although the gap between regions is still wide. Families with three ormore children (0-18) in conditions of poverty are 24.5% on a national level and34.1% in the southern regions (Table 10).

The phenomenon of the growth of poverty in families with a greater numberof children is not only Italian. However, there are at least two specificpeculiarities in the Italian situation. The first is that, ‘neither the employment ofat least one of the parents, nor the greater stability of the family and the fact thatthe proportion of children born out of wedlock is very low – all conditions thatwould seem to constitute propitious circumstances compared with othercountries – protect children and minors effectively against the risk of poverty’(Saraceno, 2002: 261).

The second characteristic is that, together with the U.K., Italy is the countrywith the highest rate of (minor) child poverty (Table 11). In its last report, theCommission of enquiry on social exclusion points out that the poverty level ofthe child population and of families with minor children is not only higher thanthe national average but has also increased in recent years. Among families withminors, in fact, the extension of poverty grew from 14% in 1997 to 15.1% in2000. The Commission estimates that in this last year ‘the number of minors inpoverty was 1,704,000, that is, 16.9% of the total number of Italian minors: aproportion that is higher than the poverty rate for the adult population andslightly more than that of the over-64s (16.7%). In particular families with twoand, above all, three minor children are poor: 16.4% and 25.5%, respectively in2000. These poor families are mostly concentrated in the Southern regions,where 27.4% of all minors are in poverty compared with 7.4% in the North and11.3% in the Centre’ (Ibid: 261-262).


302

Table 10. Relative poverty rates by some family characteristics and geographicaldivisions, 2001.

Family characteristics North Centre Mezzo-giorno

Italy

1 member2 members3 members4 members5 or more members

One-person (less than 65)One-person (more than 65)Couple with the head of the family under 65Couple with the head of the family over 65Couple with 1 childCouple with 2 childrenCouple with 3 or more childrenOne-parentOthers

4.75.34.64.79.5

1.67.31.88.64.34.98.55.08.9

4.89.77.0

12.011.9

*7.0*

14.36.3

11.1*

8.114.8

20.024.922.423.836.4

8.426.814.429.920.923.134.127.838.2

9.111.410.214.224.5

3.413.54.6

16.59.4

14.024.513.018.8

Source: Istat, Indagine sui consumi delle famiglie, 2001.(*) Not significant

Table 11. Relative poverty rates. Families with children under 18 by geographicaldivisions, 2001.

Number of children under 18 North Centre Mezzogiorno Italy1 child2 children3 or more childrenAt least 1 child under 18

4.45.1

15.55.2

9.410.5

*9.9

23.127.537.026.5

12.016.228.014.8

Source: Istat, Indagine sui consumi delle famiglie, 2001.(*) Not significant

Social expenditure among generationsChild poverty has been largely debated and documented in the last years(Saporiti and Sgritta, 1990; Saraceno, 1990; Sgritta, 1993). According to a studyby the Bank of Italy, in the course of time child poverty has increased while thatof the elderly over 65 has dropped by over 9%, passing from over 20% in 1980to 11.1% in 1993. Between 1980 and 1993, poverty among children increasedby 7% (from 24.5% to 31.5%) (Cannari and Franco, 1997: 33). In 1998, 25.8%of all children under 18 residing in the Southern regions were poor, compared to

COST A19: Italy

303

8.8% of children living in the Centre, and 7.5% in the North. The respectivepercentages for the over-65 age group were as follows: 22.5% in the South,7.6% in the Centre, and 6.4% in the North (Istat, 1999). Thus, in the wholecountry, the incidence of poverty among minors is higher than in all the otherage groups. The poverty of children is in direct proportion to their family’sstandard of living, and the latter depends, to a great extent, on the overalldistribution of wealth in the population. The more unequal the distribution ofincome, the greater is the difference of income among families. As childrenrepresent a cost to families, consequently families with more children have alower standard of living than families with fewer children or without childrenunless… these differences are counterbalanced or more than compensated by aneffective redistributive policy.

Table 12. European Union. Expenditure on social protection as a percentage of GDP,1990-1999.

Years Eur 15 B DK D EL E F IRL I L NL A P FIN S UK1990199319981999

25.528.827.627.6

26.429.528.228.2

28.731.929.929.4

25.428.429.329.6

22.922.024.325.5

19.924.020.620.0

27.930.730.530.3

18.420.215.514.7

24.726.425.025.3

22.123.922.421.9

32.533.628.528.1

26.728.928.328.6

15.220.722.422.9

25.134.627.326.7

33.138.633.232.9

23.029.127.226.9

Source: Eurostat, The social situation in the European Union, 2002, EuropeanCommission, Luxembourg, 2002.

As many studies and analyses have documented, this is unfortunately not the case.Beginning from public policies, a few facts are more than enough to illustrate thesituation. In 1999, in Italy, expenditure on social protection (in relation to GDP) is2.3 percentage points less than the EU-15 average, 25.3% as against 27.6% (Table12). Only Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal spend less than Italy (14.7%, 21.9%and 22.9%, respectively). Moreover, the composition of this expenditure byfunction shows that in Italy the share of pensions is substantially higher than inany other country; indeed, in 1999 they represent 64% of total social spending,compared to a European average value equal to 46%. Even taking into accountthat part of this expenditure is due to the allocation of some transfers to thepensioners which in other member States are included elsewhere, the high figurefor Italy denotes a specific level of generosity towards the elderly. A generositythat inevitably takes away resources from other groups of the population. In fact,such high levels of pension expenditure are matched by extremely low levels(among the lowest of all) both in the expenditure addressed to ‘family andchildren’ and to unemployment, housing and social exclusion. For example, stillin 1999, the share of expenditure addressed to families and children as a


304

percentage of total social benefits is 3.7% in Italy compared with the 8.5% of theEuropean average and with the much higher values of Denmark (13%), Ireland(13%), Finland (12.8%); the only country that does worse is Spain with 2.1%. Asto the share addressed to ‘unemployment’, it is 2.2% in Italy as against 6.8% inEurope; that addressed to ‘housing and social exclusion’, 0.2% in Italy comparedwith 3.8% of the European average (Table 13). In terms of trend, comparing theshare of benefits addressed to ‘old age and survivors’ and to ‘family and children’of total social benefits, one sees clearly that in the last decade (1990-99) while theformer increased from 57.6% to 64% the latter actually decreased, passing from4.4% to 3.7%.

Table 13. European Union. Social benefits by group of functions (as a percentage oftotal social benefits), 1990 and 1999.

Years &Functions

Eur 1

5

B DK

D EL E F IRL

I L NL

A P FIN

S UK

Old age and survivors benefits1990 45.9 41.8 36.7 45.8 51.7 42.9 42.7 30.4 57.6 46.7 37.4 50.1 41.9 33.8 .. 45.31999 46.0 43.0 38.0 42.1 50.7 46.2 44.2 25.2 64.0 41.4 41.5 47.4 43.7 35.1 39.5 46.1Sickness, health care and disability1990 36.1 33.6 30.1 38.0 33.2 36.6 34.6 38.4 35.2 38.4 44.7 33.1 47.4 44.0 .. 33.21999 34.9 33.6 31.7 36.0 31.0 37.0 34.0 45.3 30.0 39.5 40.7 35.4 45.6 37.2 36.9 34.8Unemployment1990 7.3 13.4 15.4 6.0 4.1 18.0 8.7 14.8 2.7 2.8 8.3 4.6 3.4 6.1 .. 5.91999 6.8 12.1 11.2 8.8 5.7 12.9 7.4 11.1 2.2 2.5 6.2 5.4 3.7 11.3 8.1 3.2Family & children1990 7.7 9.2 11.9 7.6 7.5 1.7 10.2 11.3 4.4 10.8 5.6 10.5 7.0 13.5 .. 9.01999 8.5 9.1 13.0 10.5 7.6 2.1 9.8 13.0 3.7 15.5 4.3 10.3 5.2 12.8 10.5 8.8Housing and social exclusion1990 3.0 2.0 6.0 2.7 3.4 0.0 3.7 5.1 0.1 1.3 3.9 1.8 0.4 2.6 .. 6.71999 3.8 2.2 6.1 2.6 5.0 1.9 4.6 5.4 0.2 1.1 7.4 1.6 1.8 3.7 4.9 7.0

Source: Eurostat, The social situation in the European Union, 2002, EuropeanCommission, Luxembourg, 2002.

This is not all. Children are not only discriminated against in comparison withother groups of the population. In Italy, public policies have also been largelyineffective in reducing poverty and inequality by means of social and economicrelief aimed at families with children. A study carried out by the EuropeanObservatory on National Family Policies compared the performances ofdifferent member States in reducing poverty by means of tax-benefit policies.While in the great majority of the countries the effectiveness of social transfersand the re-distributive force of the system of direct taxation is generally high(Belgium is the most successful, reducing over 80% of pre-transfer poverty), ‘In

COST A19: Italy

305

Italy and Spain the tax/benefit system leaves couples with children worse off,because income tax exceeds social benefits overall’. Another result worthnoting, still in the same study, regards the composition of the poor after trans-fers; as was to be expected, given the scarce incidence of economic and socialrelief addressed to families with children ‘in Spain and Italy couples withchildren represent over 40% of the poor’ (Ditch et al., 1996: 54). The con-clusion is obvious: in the southern European countries in general, and in Italy inparticular, the family, when not actually penalised, has been left alone to bearthe burden of its members’ needs.

Steps forward, steps backwardsRecently, the situation we have just described has changed to a certain extent.Between 1999 and 2001 the total social expenditure of public administrationshas risen from 249,823 to 274,479 million Euro with an increase of about 10%.However, we must consider that the different items of expenditure havecontributed to this overall increase in different ways: family allowances haveincreased by 12.9%, pensions by 7.3%, while expenditure for health andassistance has grown respectively by 20.4% and 11.8% (Table 14).

Table 14. Italy. Public social benefits by group of functions, 1999-2001 (in millions ofEuro).

Group of functions 1999 2000 2001Health

Social security, of which:PensionsFamily allowances

Assistance

Total

56,489

177,321158,983

4,716

16,013

249,823

62,586

182,173163,343

5,260

16,683

261,442

68,012

188.558170,651

5,327

17,909

274,479Source: Ministero del lavoro e delle politiche sociali, Libro bianco sul welfare, Roma,Febbraio 2003.

The increase in family allowances is due to the introduction, from 1st January1999, of a new measure aimed specifically at families with a very low incomeand at least three minor children (Act. No. 4448/1998, art. 65). This allowanceconsisted initially of a transfer of 103.29 Euro for thirteen monthly payments tofamilies – with five members – having an income below 18,593.45 Euro per


306

year. Obviously, higher income limits are valid for families with a greaternumber of members. These amounts have subsequently been revalued each yearto take into account the increase in the cost of living. From the first studies atour disposal, it is clear that these transfers have mainly benefited the poorerfamilies. In fact, on the whole, the distribution of the transfers in the nationalterritory mirrors that of poverty; it is more in the areas where the levels ofpoverty are higher, like those of the Mezzogiorno, less in the rest. Out of thetotal of the beneficiaries, 59.2% live in the South, 25.1% in the Islands, 6.5% inthe Centre, 5.6% in the regions of the North-West and only 3.6% in those of theNorth-East (Lelleri and Marzano, 2002: 385). According to the then Presidentof the Commission of Enquiry on Social Exclusion, ‘the reduction of almost onepercentage point of the incidence of poverty ... among families with at leastthree minor children between 1998 and 2000 ….. is an indirect indicator of itseffectiveness in fighting poverty, although this is still very limited (Saraceno,2002: 266).

Nevertheless, as we have seen (Table 11), it is still mainly the larger familiesthat are the most poverty-stricken; a sign that in spite of the efforts made in thisregard, the allowances for families with children are not yet large enough tocompensate for the real increase in the costs connected with the children’smaintenance. The difference between Italy and most of the other Europeancountries lies precisely in this; that is, in the different size of the transfers aimedat families with children compared with families without children, or ratherthose that have many children compared with those that have few, as well asthose where only one parent works compared with those in which both work, upto the most difficult situations where neither of the two parents is employed andhas an income.

Italy, in fact, unlike all the other European countries, lacks a system ofincome guarantee. In 1999 a measure of this type was introduced experi-mentally – The minimum inclusion income – that included both an incomesupplement (within pre-established income limits graded according to the sizeof the family) and assistance for training and socio-occupational integration.However, this measure has recently been suspended by the present governmentwhich has preferred to take the path of reforming the fiscal system, reducing therates to two (23% up to 100,000 Euro and 33% above that amount) and withcomplete exemption of incomes up to 10,329 Euro per year. It is still early toevaluate what advantages and disadvantages there will be for the families fromthis reform. Nevertheless, according to some estimates, there is the risk that theresult will be to favour families with a medium/high income while leavingalmost unchanged precisely the economic situation of the families with lowerincomes and, especially, of those with children to provide for. A furtherlimitation of the Italian situation is due to the fact that only employees (or ex-

COST A19: Italy

307

employees, now pensioners) but not the self-employed or the unemployed areentitled to family allowances.

Quantity and quality

The State’s definition of the family as a private sphere has resulted in a lack ofprovision of public play facilities.

Families, couples, have obviously had to adapt, acting accordingly. Theunlimited power they have been given by a society that has shown itself aslargely ‘irresponsible’ in this respect has given them the ability to decideautonomously, according to their own convenience, to their interests, if, whenand how many children to have. This ‘structural indifference’ of society towardschildhood and the family has not, however, had an effect only on the numbers,on the quantity. There have been other, no less important, effects that haveconcerned the quality of childhood and then successively, as we have alreadyseen, of the lives of young people. Reference figures, interpersonal relationshipsbetween parents and children, socialization, the availability of services, theorganisation of public spaces, the urban structure, the measures that wouldmake it possible for parents to reconcile care activities with work in the labourmarket, economic support for families with children, work times, and so on; infact a whole number of elements, some positive, others (most) negative, havebeen affected by the distinct boundary line between the duties of the family andthe responsibilities of society.

The child’s places and figures of reference have thus become almostexclusively home, family, parents. In a certain sense, children’s lives begin andend within the walls of the home. For most of them, their parents are the be-alland end-all for the satisfaction of their needs; the other figures of the worldoutside the family are scarcely present, if not completely absent, for a relativelylong phase of growth. Let us take play, for example: Repeated studies haveshown that at any age, between 3-5 or between 6-13, children play mainly if notexclusively at home: in their own homes, in other people’s homes or near thehouse, but anyway at home. They spend much more time within the walls of thehome or near the house than in other places. Only a tiny part of children’s playtakes place in fields, parks, private or quiet roads, the local Parish or otherpublic areas. The comparison with less recent data shows a certain inversion ofthe trend, that is the progressive increase of the child’s presence in places moreor less distant from the home (Sgritta, 1994a: 277); however, the home as thecontext of choice for play and interpersonal relations is still absolutelypredominant today (Table 15).


308

Table 15. Children (3-13 years) by places where they play on non working-days, 1998(per 100 children of the same age class).

Ageclasses

Athome

In otherpeople’shomes

In thecourt-yard

Inpublicparks

In fieldsor grassy

areas

In quietstreets

In thelocal

Parish

Else-where

3-56-1011-13

Total

85.779.268.1

77.9

2.82.93.3

3.0

4.810.213.7

9.7

4.02.63.2

3.1

1.31.32.9

1.8

0.82.33.8

2.3

-0.73.1

1.2

0.41.01.7

1.1Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, Famiglia, soggetti sociali econdizione dell’infanzia, 1998.

The hypothesis that the family environment tends to monopolise the child’s life isupheld by other data. Regarding the child’s playmates, for example. With somesmall differences between Sundays and holidays and week-days, it shows that whena child is not at school his/her playmates are mainly his/her brothers and sisters andmother, that is the closest members of the family. The father is present on Sundaysand holidays. Grandparents and other relations are frequently present while friendsand school companions take part in play less often. In the course of time thesituation has also changed in this case and anyway the involvement of friends andschoolmates in play activities becomes continuously greater as the age goes up.Where, on the other hand, no great changes are to be seen and a certain rigidity ofbehaviour remains is in the participation in recreational, cultural, sporting activitiesetc. that encourage socialisation and association.

According to the 1988-89 Multiscope survey, 81.5% of children aged 6-10never took part in a sporting activity, 93.7% never participated in activities of amusical, artistic or expressive type, 95% never participated in foreign languagecourses and 78.9% never took part in scouts groups or other such associations:while the percentages for children aged 11-13 instead of being higher were evenlower (Sgritta, 1994a: 276). We have no comparable data for 1999 but the situationremains basically the same. The replies to the question which asked them if theytook part, at least a few times a month, in associative activities of any kind confirmthe queries on the level of ‘sociality’ of childhood that have already arisen from thedata examined previously. Tiny percentages of children, at any age, take part inactivities that involve their presence, even occasionally, in centres of aggregationand socialisation with other children of the same age (Table 16).

It is not therefore surprising that children, especially the smaller ones, do notusually spend their free time with other children of the same age: about 25% ofchildren aged between 6-10 have no contact with their contemporaries in theirfree time.

COST A19: Italy

309

Table 16. Children (3-13 years) by age class and people they play with on holidays andnon-holidays when they are not at school, 1998 (per 100 children of the same age class).

Age classesPeople they play with 3-5 6-10 11-13 Total

On holidaysAlways aloneAloneWith brothers and sistersWith the motherWith the fatherWith the grandfatherWith the grandmotherWith cousinsWith friends, schoolmates

With others

On non-holidaysAlways aloneAloneWith brothers and sistersWith the motherWith the fatherWith the grandfatherWith the grandmotherWith cousinsWith friends, schoolmatesWith others

2.925.850.754.351.713.917.333.520.8

3.3

3.932.351.147.232.014.721.323.326.4 3.2

3.227.255.432.432.9 5.9 6.935.443.6

1.8

4.531.457.223.716.9 5.7 7.621.357.2 1.5

4.224.645.415.016.5 2.2 3.128.261.4

3.0

5.728.144.9 8.6 7.3 1.6 2.517.470.1 2.6

3.426.151.433.533.4 7.0 8.632.942.4

2.5

4.730.752.325.918.3 7.0 9.920.752.5 2.3

Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, Famiglia, soggetti sociali econdizione dell’infanzia, 1998.

Table 17. Children (6-17) who take part in activities of recreational, cultural,environmental, scout, etc. associations by age classes and sex, 1998 (per 100 children ofthe same age).

At least a few times a month TotalAge classesMale Female Male Female

6-1011-1314-17

Total

9.613.310.0

10.6

10.013.215.1

12.6

10.814.510.8

11.7

11.214.316.0

13.7Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, Famiglia, soggetti sociali econdizione dell’infanzia, 1998.


310

Space and time:the privatisation of childhood and its accomplices

The gradual restriction of children to within the family group and the homeitself has been caused by many important factors. In recent years, large citiesand urban areas have changed considerably and with this, the social relation-ships within this context. This change, which has had clear repercussions on thestate of childhood, has been effectively described by F.: ‘In the city of people,of walks, of meetings, of exchanges, the home was where affection, intimacy,and primary needs were to be found. The home was a simple, frugal place,where people spent a limited amount of time resting, eating, doing homework,loving and looking after the family. Then they went out to do the shopping, towork, to play, and to talk to neighbours: they couldn’t wait to get out of thehouse. They spent lots of time in the city. The city represented the big home,where they passed the time of day relaxing, doing sport, strolling about,playing, in clubs, with friends. Today the city is synonymous with traffic, noise,danger and people cannot wait to get back into their houses. The home insteadis their refuge and tranquillity. It has become in effect the small city, but onlybecause the real city has disappeared, it is dead.’ (Tonucci, 1999: 154).

As a result, both children and parents have lost their points of referencewithin the urban space. Alongside the ‘privatisation’, there has been a resultinglack of familiarity with certain urban areas. If, in fact, children live and play inrestricted areas, shared also by their family, it is also true that what in the pastwas considered ‘familiar’, even although it was not connected to the family, hasbecome unknown and full of risks: consider the neighbourhood or even theblock of flats in which they live. ‘The city is no longer the territorial containerof a limited number of similar realities, which find a moment of identity insome prescribed places: the blocks of flats, the squares, the streets, neighbour-hoods and the old quarters, suburbs and the outskirts. Places that no longerreflect customs and habits, encounters and relationships which, over the years,had formed a layer of recognisable deposits in the material form of buildings,roads, shops, churches, schools, and public buildings, as well as a few humanfigures who were part and parcel of this community set-up.’ (Sgritta, 2002: 143-144).

In big cities, being friends with neighbours is almost unheard of. The localcorner shopkeepers, caretakers, the friends with whom mum goes shopping orhangs out the washing no longer exist; all figures, to whom a child in troublewould have been able to turn to for help (allowing a parent to be at homewithout worrying). Obviously, because of these changes children are denied thechance to make independent discoveries, to experience adventure and theelements of risk which were mentioned previously. The Multiscope Surveyresults show that only 55% of boys between 6-17 years old socialise in the

COST A19: Italy

311

street at least once a week, a place which was once the most popular andcommon place for meeting up and playing (Table 18). Amongst girls, thispercentage drops to 47%. Obviously the quota of those who meet up in thestreet or square increases the older the child is, but especially amongst the girlsthe percentage never goes above 65%. Even the communal areas of a block offlats are only used by a minority of the boys and girls (altogether by 43% of thepeople between 6 and 17 years of age). In this case it is the older girls who meetup least in these communal areas (29% of girls between the ages 14 to 17),whilst 52.8% of boys between 11 and 13 spend time in the communal areas. Ithas to be pointed out that, in the Mezzogiorno the streets and squares are morecommonly used by young people to socialise, whereas in the North, thecommunal areas of blocks of flats represent the most common meeting place.

If the city’s open spaces, as we have pointed out, have been abandoned,some ‘new’ areas have become meeting places. Therefore, for the very young,just as for adults, we are seeing a move from an era when meeting up costsnothing to an epoch in which you have to pay for ‘access’ to meet up (Rifkin,2000), not necessarily in the form of a ticket, but quite probably a drink or just amatch of a video game. In particular, it is striking the percentage of boys in the11-13 age group who already spend time in amusement arcades (22%). Evenfast food restaurants are becoming important meeting places especially amongstthe older age groups. (Table 18).

The mutations within the social urban fabric which have contributed to the‘privatisation’ of childhood have also seen the arrival of new technology whichhas made it easier to keep children within the four walls of home. Childrenmainly play at home; the communal area of their block of flats, for all agegroups, plays a very secondary role. The street, even if ‘quiet’, even for theoldest children plays a very marginal role in their games. Many of the children,on the other hand, go to specific play areas and parks at least once a week(Table 19). As one can see, even in this case, they prefer the organisation ofactivities within an area with facilities rather than spontaneous play in a parkwhich has no particular facilities. One can also presume that activities inappropriately equipped areas will be carefully watched over by parent-minders(or by some adult, maybe even by the grandparents).

Therefore, streets and communal areas have been emptied of children, in partdue to the drop in the birth rate, but also because of parents’/grandparents’worries. But, how have adults managed to contain children’s liveliness andconvinced them to stay indoors? Without a doubt, technology has given them ahelping hand in carrying out this difficult job. Television continues to be animportant instrument of persuasion in adults’ anxious attempt to keep childrenwithin the home, but although television has firmly become a traditional andimportant part of the lives of Italian youth, recently a change has occurred inhow the television is being used.


312

Table 18. Children between 6 and 17 years of age who spend time in some of these places atleast once a week, by age group and gender, 1998 (per 100 children of the same age).

Age group AmusementArcades

Fast-food

Street/squares

Localparish

Work placesof family or

others

Communalareas of

blocks offlats

Boys6-10 9.9 2.3 38.1 40.3 14.0 50.311-13 21.7 5.3 57.0 49.5 13.3 52.814-17 39.1 18.3 70.7 31.1 17.2 33.5Total 23.4 8.9 54.6 39.2 15.0 44.8Girls6-10 2.1 1.4 31.2 46.5 14.7 49.711-13 5.9 1.8 47.1 53.4 12.9 46.514-17 12.4 11.7 65.1 40.7 17.8 28.9Total 6.7 5.2 47.2 46.0 15.4 41.5Total6-10 6.1 1.8 34.7 43.3 14.4 50.011-13 14.2 3.6 52.2 51.4 13.1 49.814-17 26.3 15.1 68 35.7 17.5 31.3Total 15.3 7.1 51 42.5 15.2 43.2


Table 19. Children between 3 and 13 years old by frequency of doing things, by agegroup, 1998 (per 100 children of the same age).

Age groupsActivity 3-5 years

old6-10 years

old11-13

years oldTotal

Goes to park/play area with facilitiesAt least once a week 46.2 35.0 29.1 36.4Less frequently 33.0 38.1 33.9 35.6Never 20.7 26.9 37.0 28.0Goes to a park without facilitiesAt least once a week 25.1 23.6 23.3 23.9Less frequently 30.5 32.0 29.7 31.0Never 44.4 44.4 47.0 45.1Amusement parkAt least once a week 6.4 4.6 2.5 4.5Less frequently 65.6 69.2 64.9 67.0Never 28.0 26.2 32.6 28.5


COST A19: Italy

313

The ‘virtual’ spaceThe fact is that children, as well as the elderly (obviously!) are not only thepeople who watch television programmes the most, but who also seem to becareful and demanding consumers. For children television is not, as it is formany elderly people, a background noise which eases the silence and loneliness,but a complete means of amusement. This can be proved by the fact that almost82% of children between 6 and 10 watch films on video. And, it clearly emergesfrom Figure 1, that it is, in fact, the very young, more than any other age group,who use taped films.

Between the ages of 6 and 10 it is mostly videos of animated films that arewatched, but already the children of the next age group, 11-13, more frequentlywatch real films. It is obvious that this move from the TV to videocassettesbrings about a different use of the television, which becomes almost a toy, yetanother video-game in the hands of children. However, apart from thetelevision, children today have many other instruments to keep them occupiedwhile at home and to keep them from being tempted out of the nest. Table 20shows how boys between 6 and 10, who traditionally tend to play outside, nowchoose video games and the computer as much as going outside to run about.

Figure 1. People aged 3 and above who watch videos, percentages by age group. Year2000.

75,481,8 81,4 79,8

72,9

49,4

16,8

58,3

0,0

10,0

20,0

30,0

40,0

50,0

60,0

70,0

80,0

90,0

100,0

3-5 6-10 11-13 14-24 25-44 45-64 65 e più Totale

Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, Cultura, socialità e tempo libero,2000.


314

Table 20. Children between 3 and 13 years of age, by games they play, 1998 (per 100children of the same age group).

Boys GirlsGames

3-5 years 6-10 years 3-5 years 6-10 yearsVideo games/ computer 19.6 60.4 6.7 28.8Building games / jigsaws 57.0 43.0 45.3 31.0Table games 8.8 25.4 7.0 26.5Role play 9.8 7.2 22.1 26.2Running about games 55.4 61.3 49.1 61.3Dolls /soft toys 17.2 7.7 81.5 76.2Toy cars 68.0 40.8 9.1 2.9Plasticine 26.4 11.8 25.9 17.1Musical instruments 15.1 9.8 13.5 12.1Playing ball 54.3 72.0 15.8 21.6Playing with pets 11.4 15.7 12.9 20.3Model making / repairing 11.3 13.9 3.1 3.5Domestic activity games 10.0 6.4 35.0 34.9Drawing 56.0 42.7 62.5 63.2Picture card games 15.4 38.5 8.7 19.6Collecting things 5.4 13.4 4.1 12Other 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.6

Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, Famiglia, soggetti sociali econdizione dell’infanzia, 1998.

The computer has not only transformed the life, the work and relationshipsbetween adults, but also those of young people. As we can see in Fig. 2 manychildren between the ages of 3 and 10 use a PC In the case of 11 to 17 year oldsthe percentage of those who use a PC rises well above 50%.

COST A19: Italy

315

Figure 2. People between the age of 3 and 17 who use a computer, per 100 peoplebetween the age of 3 and 17 of the same age. Year 2000.

10,4

35,8

57,363,4

0,0

10,0

20,0

30,0

40,0

50,0

60,0

70,0

3 - 5 6 - 10 11 - 14 15 - 17


The computer is generally used in the home by over 66% of the users in the 6 to10 age group; this percentage drops to 45% in the case of older children becausethere is an increase in the quota of those using the computer both at home andoutside the home (very probably at school). The quota of those using the PC inthe home from 1995 to 2000 has increased noticeably, going from 25.7% to38.6%. What is most striking, however, is the noticeable difference that remainsin the domestic use of the computer depending on the level of education reachedby the parents: it goes from as high as 62% amongst children of graduates to14% amongst children of those who have only completed primary leveleducation or who have no recognised qualifications (Table 21). There is also aconsiderable difference between children whose parents are graduates and thosewhose parents have finished secondary education.

This situation not only makes one reflect, once again, on the influence thefamily has on the socialisation processes, on academic performance and ingeneral on the ‘social success of our children’, but it also highlights still furtherhow today the most widespread amusements and, as we will see later,relationships are not ‘free’, but require a sort of ‘pass’, that not all can obtain,with obvious consequential serious risks of being left on the sidelines for theexcluded (Rifkin, 2000).


316

Table 21. Children between the ages of 6 and 14 living with at least one parent by useof PC at home and highest academic qualification of their parents, 1995 and 2000 (per100 children who live with a parent with the same characteristics).

1995 2000Highest academicqualification of parents 6-10 11-14 Total 6-10 11-14 TotalDegree 39.5 48.1 43.3 54.7 71.3 61.6Secondary school 27.1 41.6 33.0 39.6 60.0 49.1Middle school 12.0 24.2 17.7 17.3 35.9 26.1Primary /no qualification 7.5 16.5 13.0 4.6 18.9 13.5Total 20.8 31.3 25.7 30.5 47.6 38.6


The PC is mainly used to play games on, but many say that they also use it fordoing their homework: 31% of children between the ages of 6-10 and almost64% between the ages of 11-14. The computer is an aid to play and study, but itis also, ever more frequently, both for children as it is for adults, a way ofestablishing relationships thanks to use of the Internet. The net allows you to‘meet’ the outside world, to ‘travel’ and to make new acquaintances withoutstepping outside the house. Therefore, relationships no longer are located inphysical space, but also in ‘virtual’ space, much vaster and – as such – difficultto keep a check on. Parents keep their children at home to protect them from thedangers outside, but is the immense virtual space that can be accessed throughthe Internet less insidious? ‘Discovery’ is a necessary part of growing up and itis obvious that by denying today’s children the chance to experience certain‘risks’, they will necessarily, almost physiologically seek out others, of adifferent sort, to overcome the constraints of the ‘nest’ (The use of the Internetin free time is mainly done at home).

It is predominantly young people who use the Internet. In the north of Italy itis precisely in the 15 to 19 age group that we find the highest percentage ofpeople who connect to the net, which in the North-West touches 55%. As onecan see, the recourse to Internet varies a great deal depending on thegeographical area (Table 22). North-east Italy is in the lead, in both the 11-14age group, and in the 15-19 age group. The south and the islands come in last,with differences compared to the North of over 20 percentage points. Childrenuse the Internet mostly for play, but the quota of those who use it to obtaininformation and for keeping in touch with people cannot be ignored. In fact,amongst users, 24% of the people between 11 and 14 years of age and 43% ofthe 15-19 age group said they used the Internet to take part in chat groups,newsgroups and forums.

COST A19: Italy

317

Table 22. Persons of 11 years old and above who use the Internet by age andgeographical distribution. (per 100 persons of the same age and same area). Year 2000.

Age groupGeographicaldistribution 11-

1415-19

20-24

25-34

35-44

45-54

55-59

60-64

65-74

75 andover

Total

North west 29.0 47.3 46.6 36.0 29.3 19.3 9.1 2.4 2.4 0.4 21.8North east 33.6 54.9 50.1 39.9 28.7 17.9 7.1 3.6 1.5 0.9 22.7Centre 26.2 41.2 41.4 33.7 26.6 16.9 9.8 5.7 2.2 0.4 20.0South 13.8 24.2 27.3 19.1 15.6 10.7 5.5 3.5 0.9 0.9 13.1Islands 16.8 23.8 26.7 18.3 13.7 11.5 4.8 2.0 0.6 - 12.5Italy 22.5 36.6 38.3 30.3 23.5 15.7 7.6 3.5 1.7 0.6 18.5

Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, Cultura, socialità e tempo libero, 2000.

This information confirms that the net is becoming, for young people, just as foradults, too, ever more frequently a ‘virtual space’ for meeting up and not simplyan instrument to obtain information, an infinite encyclopaedia. Children whoconnect to Internet tend to use e-mail facilities less than adults who, as weknow, use it in many cases for business reasons. Among children between theages of 11-14, 40% of those who go on line use the e-mail services. Thispercentage rises to about 54% of the next age group (15-17). These arenoteworthy quotas if one considers that for children the e-mail service is onlyused as an instrument of communication and relations.

Linked to the electronic evolution there is another powerful ally helpingparents keep children at home: the video game. Between 1995 and 2000 the useof video-games has become very widespread, involving, in ever increasingnumbers, not only boys but also girls of all ages and in particular childrenbetween the ages of 11 and 14 (Table 23). Widespread diffusion has broughtabout a narrowing down of the differences between North and South: in 1995between the North-East and the South, for the 11-14 age group, there were agood 22 percentage points of difference (31 between the North-East and theIslands); in 2000 the difference between the south of Italy and the north is lessthan 10 percentage points (10 for the Islands).

If one observes Table 24 we can see that, with the increase in age, the videogames no longer keep children in the home. In fact, the percentage of those whouse them both at home and outside the home increases, as does the percentageof those who only use them outside. To explain such a phenomenon the ageelement comes into play, as does a generation effect. As children grow up, ashas already been seen, they spend more time out of the home and so theopportunity to play video games is reduced; but it could also be that what iscontributing to this behaviour is the fact that the ‘old’ generations grew upduring the period when the use of video games at home was less common.


318

Table 23. Percentage of children between 6 and 17 who use video games by age group,gender and geographic location. Percentage values, 1995 and 2000.

1995 2000Gender andgeographic area 6-10 11-14 15-17 Total 6-10 11-14 15-17 TotalGenderBoys 59.0 72.6 65.2 65.2 73.5 86.1 82.2 80.2Girls 35.4 46.1 37.1 39.4 55.3 61.0 51.2 56.2Total 47.5 59.7 51.9 52.7 64.7 73.8 67.2 68.5Geographic areaNorth-west 52.0 74.0 57.2 60.4 63.5 79.3 73.3 71.7North-east 54.9 68.3 58.6 60.5 65.0 79.1 66.1 69.9Centre 55.2 62.9 54.0 57.3 67.9 72.5 65.7 68.8South 41.6 52.1 47.4 46.8 65.3 70.4 64.7 66.9Islands 37.0 43.0 43.7 40.8 61.0 69.2 66.4 63.0Italy 47.5 59.7 51.9 52.7 64.7 73.8 67.2 68.5


Table 24. Percentage of children who use video games by age group and place of use.2000.

Age group Only at home Only outside thehome

Both at home andoutside the home

Total

3-5 75 9 15 1006-10 53 12 35 10011-14 36 13 51 10015-17 30 20 50 10018-19 30 26 44 100


Outside the home: supervised freedom

The ‘privatisation’ of children’s time and space is not only caused by limitingthem to the confines of the home, but also through the adults’ widespread andcapillary penetration into their children’s time and space. Eventually, even if itis only through the need to go to school, children have to leave the home andwhat then? What happens? How can the parents accept that their children runsuch risks and so many of them? Table 25 allows us to examine what happensin a moment of great importance in the development of a child. Leaving thefamily to go to school (nursery-school or primary) symbolically marks afundamental step in the life of each one of us: leaving the ‘nest’ and setting off

COST A19: Italy

319

on the road to independence. For many children today this also means entry tothe first space in which they can meet up with children of their own age and ‘getfree of’ their parents. However, if at the beginning of the seventies, 80% ofchildren walked to school and without their parents accompanying them, todayin Italy children who go to school alone are a rarity: only 11% of childrenbetween 6 and 10 and 39% in the next age group up.

It is mainly the mother’s job to accompany children to school. The majority ofchildren up to 10 years old are taken to school by their mothers; this percentagesettles at 53% in the 11 to 13 year old age group and even here a high percentage ofthese children are taken to school by their mothers. Fathers and grandparents alsoplay their part in the ‘family supervision’ even if to a much lesser degree. Ingeneral, therefore, just under 70% of Italian children between the ages of 6 and 10are accompanied to school by an adult member of their family.

Table 25. Children aged between 3 to 13 who go to school. By person with whom theygo to school and age group. 1998 (per 100 children of the same gender, age group andgeographic area).

Person who accompanies child to schoolAgegroups Alone With the

motherWith the

father

Withgrand

parents

Withsiblings or

friends

With otherpeople

By schoolbus

3-5 0.3 71.5 8.9 6.9 0.4 2.0 9.9 6-10 10.6 53.0 12.5 3.8 4.7 2.9 12.6 11-13 39.0 23.7 11.4 2.1 8.6 1.4 13.7Total 16.4 48.8 11.3 4.1 4.9 2.2 12.3Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, Famiglia, soggetti sociali econdizione dell’infanzia, 1998.

One presumes, moreover, that Italian mothers of today, with the constantincrease in roles expected of them, must, without a doubt, go to a lot of troublein order to take their children to school. And despite this, to save their childrenfrom going to school alone, they are willing to make these sacrifices. So muchso that the trip to school represents necessarily also a moment of ‘bargaining’between adult time, mainly that of parents, and the time belonging to children.Therefore, even this brief period of autonomous time has been taken away bitby bit from children and the ‘wild space’ that lies between the home and theschool becomes a space tamed by the presence of the parents.

It is mothers, first and foremost that infiltrate this time and space, whichused to coincide with an important moment for children to socialise withchildren of the same age and to discover the world around them. Of course, it is


320

natural that the modern day city with its many dangers scares the family. Weonly have to look at the traffic situation where cars rule the road and there arenext to no safe crossing places, but are these not the very same parents who afew years later are willing to buy their children a moped?

Technology has once again come to the rescue of worried parents. Today itcomes in the form of another instrument to infiltrate still further the time andspace of our children: the mobile phone. Such a means of communicationallows parents to ‘follow’ every step the child takes outside the family home.The use of the mobile phone is widespread even amongst very young children(Table 26). What seems to emerge, even in this case, as has already happened inthe case of the use of the computer and above all of the Internet, is that theinstrument bought by the parents for their own peace of mind so that they knowtheir children are safe is used by the children as an instrument to establishrelationships and of ‘liberation’. Children say they use it to keep in touch moreeasily with their friends while for their parents the mobile phone remains, in themajority of cases, a means of staying in touch with family members.

Table 26. Persons of 11 years old and above who use a mobile phone by reason forusing phone, age group and gender. 2000.

Age

gro

up

For w

ork

For t

he p

leas

ure

of b

eing

abl

e to

talk

to w

hoev

er y

ou w

ant,

at a

ny ti

me

and

in a

ny p

lace

To b

e ab

le to

con

tact

par

ents

and

fam

ily m

embe

rs e

asily

To b

e ab

leto

con

tact

frie

nds e

asily

Bec

ause

my

pare

nts-

elde

rly re

lativ

esar

e un

wel

l

To b

e m

ore

easi

ly h

elpe

d (h

ealth

–ha

ndic

ap)

To fe

el sa

fer i

f the

re is

dan

ger

To b

e ab

le to

cop

e be

tter w

ithun

expe

cted

thin

gs, d

elay

s and

emer

genc

ies

Bec

ause

it’s

han

dy n

ot to

hav

e to

look

for a

pub

lic p

ay p

hone

Oth

er

11-14 0.6 44.5 63.9 64.9 1.0 0.1 19.0 17.4 20.0 1.615-17 1.6 54.8 62.6 74.6 1.0 0.6 16.8 25.9 23.5 0.618-19 6.7 55.4 62.5 68.3 0.7 0.2 20.4 29.7 25.1 1.120-24 18.1 52.3 58.7 59.3 1.3 0.4 18.5 29.5 21.3 0.825-34 35.1 38.8 59.2 36.8 2.7 0.2 18.9 33.2 21.7 1.035-44 40.6 22.6 63.4 21.1 5.5 0.4 18.3 36.4 24.4 0.945-54 37.1 18.3 64.0 16.0 6.9 0.5 16.8 35.3 24.6 0.655-59 27.5 17.0 62.5 12.7 6.7 1.5 18.2 30.8 24.8 1.160-64 20.9 17.9 63.9 15.2 7.2 1.5 20.0 30.4 23.0 0.865-74 10.3 16.6 65.4 14.4 5.5 3.6 26.9 30.5 22.7 1.175 andover

3.0 12.9 62.3 11.9 1.0 4.8 23.6 27.7 16.5 1.6

Total 28.8 31.2 62.0 32.3 4.2 0.7 18.8 32.5 23.1 0.9Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, Cultura, socialità e tempo libero,2000.

COST A19: Italy

321

Risks denied and limited responsibilityThe privatisation of childhood has, therefore, had evident effects on children’stime and space. Not only do young people remain within the family until theyare adults, extending ‘childhood’ and creating the well-known Peter Pansyndrome, but, running parallel to this, is the gradual blurring of the lines thatdivide adult space and children’s space. On the one hand, in fact, adults arealways present in their children’s time and space (so the latter remain childrenfor a long time). On the other hand, children never grow up but remain childrenin time and it is difficult to distinguish the modes of organising the children’stime and space (often thought up and put into action by adults), from the modesused for the organisation of the time and space of the adults. One now speaks of‘adultisation of childhood’ and ‘infantilisation of the adult age’.

Childhood thus seems to have become a period in the life cycle which lastslonger and longer, and with it, the characteristics that distinguish it are be-coming ever more blurred and little by little less easy to identify. The divisionbetween children’s space and adult space, which characterised the passage fromancient to modern times (Ariés, 1968), seems to have been surpassed, andincreasingly, for different reasons, the distinction between adult space andchildren’s space is ever finer.

Such ‘confusion’ can be found both on the ‘physical’ level (children sharethe physical space of adults and there is more often than not a ‘grown up’ whowatches over and organises children’s free time) and on the ‘social’ level:children of 7-8 years of age live with their family just as young people of 27-28do 3. It is more difficult for children to be ‘on their own’, and one wonders howmuch this then weighs on their lack of autonomy as young adults, on theirability/inability to take ‘risks’. Risk is an essential element of growth anddevelopment. Paradoxically, today’s children live in what many define as the‘risk society’ (Beck, 1996), but they have little or no experience of ‘risk’, due tothe constant presence of parents or other adults who seem to prevent or at leastlimit any situations of risk (Baruzzi, 2002). Often children are denied theopportunity to find their own solutions to everyday problems: when/if to crossthe road? Whether to pick something up from the ground or leave it? Whether tostop and stroke a kitten or walk on?

Children rarely have an opportunity to ‘test themselves’ and many doubts havebeen raised over the effect that adults can have on children by denying them theopportunity to meet danger at the right moment: it could transform itself into anuncontrollable need for risk, which would explode in adolescence. ‘Children’shands are held wherever they go until they are ten or twelve years old and then atfourteen they are given a moped. The jump is enormous, the desire for freedom 3 In most cases the 30 year-olds who do not leave the nest continue to live at home in thesame physical spaces – the same “little room’ – in which they spent their real childhood.


322

equally great, whilst the skills to deal with this space and time are few, and theknowledge of their limitations is poor’ (Tonucci, 2002: 70).

It appears appropriate to reflect, since it is a situation peculiar to Italy, on howthis constant family presence, both worried and attentive, plays a part in theinability of young adults to become independent of the family, to make their ownway and manage their own time and space. Italian parents seem, in fact, not only toprotect their children from risks and danger, but also tend to relieve them of takingresponsibility even for small things, especially in the case of their sons.

We can see from Table 27 that only a minority proportion of children, evenamongst the 14-17 age group, regularly help in the running of the home. Theycontribute by doing some shopping (48%), setting and clearing the table (36%)or taking the rubbish out to the bin (53%). However, it is surprising that of thesepeople, who should be close to independence and a life on their own, only 24%make their own bed and only about 44% tidy up their own things.

Table 27. Children between the ages of 6 and 17 by activity carried out daily in thehome, percentages per gender and age. 1998.

Boys Girls TotalActivity 6-10 11-

1314-17 Tot. 6-10 11-

1314-17 Tot. 6-10 11-

1314-17 Tot.

Looking after youngersiblings 18.1 21.1 18.4 18.9 17.8 25.1 23.5 21.6 17.9 23.0 20.8 20.2

Going shopping/ doingerrands 21.1 48.2 48.3 37.6 17.9 45.7 54.8 37.8 19.5 47.0 51.4 37.7

Making the bed 10.3 19.4 24.8 17.8 22.8 57.8 71.0 48.4 16.4 37.8 47.0 32.6Tidying up own things 40.8 43.9 43.7 42.6 52.4 63.6 74.0 62.8 46.5 53.4 58.2 52.4Watering plants 17.7 15.0 13.1 15.3 21.7 21.5 16.1 19.6 19.7 18.1 14.5 17.4Helping in the kitchen 6.3 9.1 13.3 9.5 12.0 25.5 38.3 24.7 9.1 17.0 25.3 16.8Setting or clearing the table 35.8 44.2 44.0 40.8 52.4 70.6 76.3 65.3 44.0 56.9 59.5 52.7Helping with cleaning 9.9 12.6 14.1 12.1 23.5 44.2 57.9 40.8 16.6 27.8 35.1 26.0Doing the odd job 9.0 20.4 33.1 20.6 5.1 7.5 9.5 7.2 7.1 14.2 21.8 14.1Going to the post office 1.8 7.9 18.8 9.5 1.1 5.1 15.8 7.3 1.4 6.6 17.4 8.4Taking out the rubbish 28.9 56.2 53.0 44.3 23.2 46.6 38.7 34.3 26.1 51.6 46.1 39.5Washing the dishes/ fillingthe dishwasher 4.0 8.1 11.3 7.7 12.2 32.0 52.3 31.3 8.0 19.6 31.0 19.1

Looking after family pets 14.6 19.5 21.0 18.1 15.3 23.2 20.7 19.1 14.9 21.3 20.9 18.6Does nothing to help at home 24.4 12.2 10.7 16.4 18.1 4.4 2.9 9.4 21.3 8.4 7.0 13.0Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo ‘Famiglia, soggetti sociali e condizionedell’infanzia’, 1998.

The situation changes in the case of the girls of the family who, traditionally,are more intensely involved in the day-to-day running of the family, especiallythose jobs needing done within the home. In general, however, only 51% of

COST A19: Italy

323

parents consider it important that the children help with the running of thehome. Compared to the very limited amount of responsibility expected of themand the homework they have to do, children have, on the whole, a fair amountof freedom; for example in the 14-17 age group over 73% have their own set ofhouse keys. As we can see, it is this combination (little responsibility + lots offreedom) that seems to play a considerable role in the extended period of timeyoung people choose to spend with the family.

At school: finally alone

Only within the school do children seem, at last to get away from their parents.The mother pulls up outside the school and lets the child out of the car; theythen enter into a space where, even if under the watchful eye of the teacher, theycan meet up with other children like themselves. But what is the school in termsof ‘space’? What are the ‘spaces’ that the child can actually use within theschool building? We can no longer consider the ‘school’ as a single, monolithicspace. The school is no longer just the ‘classroom’. The needs highlighted bynew pedagogic approaches and, at the same time, the need for an ever morecomplex development has made the school a composite structure, made up ofdistinct, ‘specialised’ and organised time and space to suit the different activi-ties. Evidently the use of specific spaces depends essentially on what eachschool has to offer: not all schools have swimming pools or kitchen and diningfacilities.

The youngest children seem to remain most intensively in the school spacesnot exclusively designated to study, such as the play areas, the dining room areaand the playground (Table 28). Instead, as they get older, the school becomeseminently a place of formation. In fact, the places designated to practice(laboratories) and study (libraries) are the ones most used. The gym is the areaoutside the classroom that is the most used4. As to the dining area, it must bepointed out that not all schools offer this service. 53% of children below the ageof 14 do not have lunch at school. 61% do not even have the possibility ofhaving dinners, given that the school does not have dining and kitchen facilities.Going home for lunch is a characteristic peculiar to Italian schoolchildren. Evennow, despite the number of working mothers, it continues to be a verywidespread custom, so much so that the reason given in 12.5% of cases forgoing home for lunch is that ‘the family prefers the children to have lunch athome with them’.

However, despite having to stop outside the school gates, this does not meanthat the parents are not involved in their children’s school life, in particular in 4 In school programmes physical education takes place in a specific space.


324

helping with their homework. 86.8% of students often have or always havehomework to do at home. In primary school, a student spends on average twohours per day on homework, two and a half in the middle school and threehours in the secondary. Girls spend a greater number of hours studying thanboys do, both in the middle and secondary school, (respectively 2 hours and 43minutes compared to 2 hours and 20 minutes and 3 hours and 15 minutescompared to 2 hours and 37 minutes).

Table 28. Children between the ages of 6-17 who go to school by type of school,gender and use even occasional of services or apparatus by gender – 1998 (per 100children of the same gender and type of school).

School areas Primaryschool

Middleschool

Secondaryschool

Total

Play areas 23.8 19.5 15.2 20 Dining room 38.7 20.4 6.1 23.9Garden/area with apparatus 28.2 23.1 16.2 23.2Garden/area with no apparatus 36.5 26.6 21.5 29.3Art room 11.0 36.7 14.0 19.0Theatre/music room 17.6 31.3 13.8 20.3Gym 59.7 79.6 71.4 68.7Swimming pool 4.6 4.7 3.2 4.2Library 21.1 32.3 32.1 27.5Science lab/computer 10.3 34.0 55.0 30.2Language lab 6.3 14.4 23.1 13.6Nothing 8.7 5.0 6.0 6.9Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo ‘Famiglia, soggetti sociali e condizionedell’infanzia’, 1998.

The role parents play in helping with their children’s homework is of greatimportance in the primary school: only 47% of children do their homeworkalone, whilst 68.9% are also given help by their mother and 19.8% by theirfather (Table 29).

It is obvious, therefore, that also in this area there is a noticeable imbalancein the amount of time fathers spend with their children compared to that of themothers. Parents continue, even if to a lesser degree (84% of students say theydo their homework by themselves), to help children with their homework evenin the middle school: 10.6% of students get help from their fathers and 29.8%from their mothers.

COST A19: Italy

325

Table 29. Children and teenagers in the 6 to 17 age group who go to school and whohave homework to do at home by person they are helped by and type of school – 1998(per 100 children and teenagers of the same age, gender, type of school and geographiclocation).

Person who they do their homework with

Type of school AloneWiththe

father

With themother

With schoolmates

Withbrothersor sisters

Withanotherperson

Primary school 46.9 19.8 68.9 3.7 11.2 8.4Middle school 84.0 10.6 29.8 13.7 11.7 5.1Secondary school 93.3 5.4 9.3 16.3 6.4 3.8Total 71.0 13.0 40.3 10.2 9.9 6.1Source: Istat, Indagine Multiscopo ‘Famiglia, soggetti sociali e condizionedell’infanzia’, 1998.

School and education play a paramount role in the lives of children, simplybecause they spend so much of their time there. Despite this, Italian schoolchildren also take part in a series of organised and structured out-of-schoolactivities. It becomes clear, therefore, that over and above the computer andvideo games, other pastimes are taking the place of spending time out in thestreet or in the communal areas of the blocks of flats.

School, sport, cinema, theatre…but is it not a bit much?If it is true that school takes up the majority of Italian children’s time it isequally true that it is not the only learning ‘space’ that the children frequent.There are, in fact, a multitude of activities that children take part in. There is avast array of fee-paying courses on offer which make up for the schools’ failureto provide this sort of education but can also be interpreted as an attempt byparents to supply their children with alternatives to the street. After schoolcourses, especially sport, allow children not only to socialise but also to domany of the things that children used to do in the street (to move, to run, tojump, etc.) in a safe and supervised area. And even then, these courses seem,like powdered milk, more of a surrogate than a substitute for the real thing. Andchildren realise this. So much so that from a recent survey it was found thatchildren need to ‘play for free’ (Tonucci, 2002). It is evident that a boy cannothelp but perceive the profound difference between kicking a ball about the yardand taking part in formal football lessons, which, whatever way you look at it, isa school and school isn’t much fun. Children’s vitality seems to have beenchannelled into formalised courses. Nothing is left to chance and few are theactivities that children can do without adult supervision. Also in this case, risk


326

and responsibility are limited, thanks to the presence of teachers, trainers andinstructors etc.

One could also think that the choice to enrol children in after school coursescomes from the parents need to have some time free by entrusting others withthe supervision of their children, at least for a few hours .One must, however,consider that the free time gained in this way is in effect brief because theparents still have the responsibility (not insignificant) of taking the children tothese courses and picking them up again afterwards. The percentage of childrenwho have done a course is very high (47.3%), in particular amongst the 11-14year old group.

The most common lessons taken are those where a fee is paid. It isinteresting to note that there is a noticeable difference between males andfemales: the first show a greater interest for after-school courses. Sport anddance are the activities which are the most popular with children of all ages.This evidence can be considered a further element that backs up the hypothesisthat these activities have substituted in part the ‘street’ activities. Children’snatural liveliness and vitality continues to be expressed in controlled andordered spaces and forms. The real formative needs, in fact, do not seem insteadto find ample space in courses done outside school time. Lessons in languagesand computer science represent only a residual interest for Italian children.

Unaccompanied minors

The progressive disappearance of children from the streets and courtyards hasmarked the passage of the modern city to the contemporary one. It is unlikelyyou will find the signs of chalk on the street that show that children have beenplaying there, and you rarely hear a ball bouncing in the courtyard. The streettakes on negative connotations also in association with the spread of thedisturbing phenomenon of street children in regions in economic difficulty. The‘rarefaction’ of childhood also at the demographic level has determined, as wehave already said, attention for the child and at the same time ‘visibility’. Whilstthe number of Italian children has diminished, however, a new phenomenon hasmade headway in our country: the growing number of foreign children. Thesechildren in many ways are even more visible, not only because sometimes theyhave ‘different’ and identifiable somatic types, but also because they live muchmore intensely in open spaces than do Italian children. Intense mobility throughspace is one of the characteristics of our epoch. Thanks to new means ofcommunication and transport, distance becomes ever ‘shorter’ and free ofphysical barriers. It is quite a different situation when we talk about regulatorybarriers. If on the one hand we have witnessed a progressive unification of‘community space’ within Europe, on the other, the external frontiers of the EU,

COST A19: Italy

327

closed during the seventies, have been grudgingly reopened, and only to admitimmigration flows caused by serious and temporary crises (most often due tothe outbreak of armed conflict).

Since the 1980s, Italy has become the destination of ever-growing numbersof immigrants. Even regarding international migrations recently affecting thecountry, we have seen a ‘family phenomenon’ that has led to a noticeableincrease in the number of children who have foreign citizenship (TognettiBordogna, 1994). These children have followed their parents’ moves, but aboveall they are children who have been able to be reunited with their parents whomuch earlier had immigrated to Italy. The complex phenomenon of ‘unac-companied minors’ present within the countries of the European Union must notbe underestimated. Most of them are here due to situations of tension andconflict in a few states in central-eastern Europe (in particular the Balkan area).

In Italy at the end of 2001 there were 7823 unaccompanied minors reportedto the Committee for foreign minors. The largest category was 17 years old, butnot a few were 16 or younger (Table 30).

Table 30. Foreign unaccompanied minors reported to the Committee for foreignminors, age groups, 30-11-2001.

Age group Absolute values %0-6 200 2.67-14 1316 16.815 995 12.716 2018 25.817 3294 42.1Total 7823 100.0

Source: elaboration on data registered by Comitato per i minori stranieri.

In general, as one can see from the chart, from the mid nineties children makeup an ever growing quota of the foreigners who live with a permit to stay inItaly. In a ten year period, the number of foreigners under the age of 18 hasmore than quadrupled: they were 76,400 in 1992 and 327,500 in 2002 (Istat,2003).

Furthermore, in the same period, there has been a noticeable increase in thebirth of children of couples where one or both are foreign. From 1993 to 2001,they have more than tripled. Contemporarily the number of births per thousandforeigners has grown: it has gone from 12 to 19 in the 7 years taken intoconsideration (Table 31).

One must also keep in mind the fact that many foreign women prefer to gohome to their own country to give birth, where they have their family to help


328

them, and they bring their child back to Italy. Therefore, a contingent ofchildren who have immigrated with or after their parents, are flanked by asecond generation born in Italy of foreign parents or of mixed couples.Evidently, such a mutation, that has profoundly modified the face of immi-gration in Italy, has had visible consequences on the integration process of theimmigrant population. Partly because the children present difficulties and veryparticular problems relating to settling into the host society, and partly becausethe presence of young foreigners also changes the picture for adults, who can nolonger be classified as ‘single workers’, since immigrants with families arewidespread and have different needs.

Table 31. Foreign population in Italy according to the population register (1st January,years 1993-2001), foreign births and annual growth.

Year Foreign population1st January

Births absolutevalues

Births per 1.000foreign residents

Annual growth offoreign births

1993 573,258 7,000 11.6 -1994 629,165 8,028 12.2 14.71995 685,469 9,061 12.7 12.91996 737,793 10,820 13.3 19.41997 884,555 13,569 14.5 25.41998 991,678 16,901 16.0 24.61999 1,116,394 21,175 17.7 25.32000 1,270,553 25,916 19.0 22.52001 1,464,589 .. .. ..Source: Istat, various years.

It is evident that the process of socialisation is not without difficulties for theseimmigrant children. In many cases, the immigrant child lives suspendedbetween two realities. Migration (even if not directly experienced) is an elementof identity disruption. Some scholars suggest the concept of ‘double-identity’,which can sometimes be frustrating. In particular, space is the context ofidentity construction. The identity of immigrant children is suspended betweendifferent spaces: that of their country of origin and that of the host country or,more simply, between that of their family life and that of public life (most of allscholastic, but not only). The family at times is in contraposition with the realityof the immigration country. Sometimes there are contrasts between the home-space and the other spaces, especially in school. Table 32, shows clearly theconsistent increase in the enrolments of foreign children in Italian schools.

It is necessary to underline that such a phenomenon is particularly visible inlarge cities and in some areas where the density of pupils from countries outsidethe European Community is very high. Teachers and schools, on whom the

COST A19: Italy

329

weight of responsibility for initiatives falls, due to the absence of specificpolicies, are not able to fill the delicate role of ‘mediators’ needed by thesechildren, who, in many cases, find themselves speaking one language at schooldifferent from the one they speak with their parents. A language behind whichan unknown and perhaps ‘strange’ culture is concealed that they have never hadthe means to ‘absorb’ and which has never been explained to them before.Recent research shows that almost all teachers think that the presence of foreignchildren in classes, especially when they are numerous, carries with it extraproblems (Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, 1999). At the same time it hasbeen shown that when immigrant children are present in a class there isinsufficient preparation of didactics and classroom management.

Table 32. Foreign children in Italian schools, 1986-2001.

Total Foreigners out of totalstudents

Annual growthSchool year

a.v. % %1986/87 7,424 0.07 5.301987/88 8,967 0.09 20.781988/89 11,791 0.12 31.491989/90 13,668 0.14 15.921990/91 18,794 0.19 37.501991/92 25,756 0.27 37.041992/93 30,547 0.32 18.601993/94 37,478 0.41 22.691994/95 42,816 0.47 14.241995/96 50,322 0.56 17.531996/97 57,595 0.66 14.451997/98 70,657 0.81 22.681998/99 85,522 1.09 21.041999/2000 119,679 1.31 39.942000/2001 147,406 1.80 23.172001/2002 181,767 2,31 23,31Source: Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, 2002.

Recently, studies have brought to the fore the difficulties, contrasts, andhardships of being a foreign child in Italy (Istituto Psicoanalitico per le ricerchesociali, 2000). Undoubtedly, growing up in a foreign country is particularlycomplex for children because the difficult job of mediating between differentcultures, different worlds, different societies, weighs on their shoulders.Immigrant children have to face the double difficulty of creating their ownpersonal identity and a cultural identity.


330

If finding this balance is not easy for adults, it must, without a doubt, be verydifficult for children. Given that in many cases, as we have said, family andschool (taken in the larger sense as the agent of socialisation that allows contactwith children of the same age) ‘pull’ in opposite directions.

A study carried out in Rome in the autumn of 2001 on adult immigrantsbelonging to four different groups showed that many of those interviewed,especially amongst Moroccans and Filipinos (about 33% of the sample), did notfeel it is advisable that their children adopt the habits of the country they live in(Table 33). It is evident that this attitude can only create conflicts within thefamily the moment the children brought up in Italy start behaving like theirschool mates (Conti and Strozza, forthcoming).

It cannot be overlooked that amongst the Filipinos (the group which emergedfrom the study as the most ‘closed’), a considerable percentage preferred theirson or daughter to choose a partner from their own country. It is comforting,however, that the majority of immigrants interviewed made it quite clear that ‘itis the person that counts’ and not the nationality (Table 34).

Table 33. Degree of agreement with the statement ‘Children must adopt the customs ofthe host country’, total numbers and percentages.

CitizenshipRomania Philippines Morocco Peru

A.V. % A.V. % A.V. % A.V. %Don’t know 24 7.6 12 3.8 33 10.5 9 2.7Not at all 39 12.4 73 22.6 51 16.5 45 13.4Little 37 12.0 35 10.7 51 16.4 52 15.5Enough 98 31.3 84 26.1 83 26.5 112 33.5Very 115 36.8 119 36.8 94 30.2 117 34.9 Total 312 100.0 323 100.0 312 100.0 336 100.0Source: Conti, Strozza (eds.) 2004.

Table 34. What partner would you prefer for your child? Total numbers and per-centages.

CitizenshipRomania Philippines Morocco Peru

A.V. % A.V. % A.V. % A.V. %From the same country 35 11.6 82 25.5 63 21.3 42 12.6An Italian 5 1.7 2 0.6 9 3.0 15 4.5What counts is the personnot the nationality

262 86.8 237 73.8 224 75.7 277 82.9

Total 302 100.0 321 100.0 296 100.0 334 100.0Source: Conti, Strozza (eds.) 2004.

COST A19: Italy

331

Added to the difficulty of going through the process of socialisation withininstitutions, family and school, that often do not even speak the same language,there is also the objective hardship encountered by children who frequentlyexperience a lot of economic and material difficulties. Undoubtedly, thefindings that clearly demonstrate the ‘hardships’ experienced by young immi-grants are those of juvenile deviance. Psychological hardship, social insecurity,and the precarious economic situation in which many young foreigners findthemselves, could bring with them a noticeable risk of falling into criminalways. The deviant behaviour seen in some immigrant youths may, therefore,derive from the disappointment compared to the aspirations and myths of thehost society to which is added, sometimes, the denial of access to some of themost elementary expectations (Palidda, 2000).

The statistics show that in 1999 27% of minors reported to the police in Italywere foreigners (Istat, 2002). Foreign child crime has unusual characteristics inthat, in contrast to what happens in the case of Italians, there is a very stronginvolvement of young girls and teenage girls, and that it occurs mainly withinthe ambit of urban micro-criminality. Immigrant boys and girls are mainlyinvolved in crimes such as pick pocketing, theft and extortion.

A further element that highlights the hardship of being a child and animmigrant in Italy is the fact that the statistics relating to the period between1998 and 1999 show that there are 6,873 missing children, of whom 5,479 havebeen retraced (Istat, 2002). Of these minors still to be found, 90% areforeigners. One must also remember that foreign children in many cases arevictims of crimes committed by adults, some from their own country and somenot. A phenomenon which causes particular worry is (child trafficking) and theconsequent exploitation of child labour or, an even more alarming phenomenon,prostitution. Yet, despite the difficulties that they face, recent studies havehighlighted the positive role immigrant children play in the integration processof the family by becoming themselves the very factors of socialisation. If theyare not left to their own devices, children can become precious channels ofcommunication between the society of the host country and the family theyoriginate from. By going to school foreign children learn the language, theylearn to recognise and be recognised, they learn to communicate and in doing sobecome the promoters of cohabitation, which is not only possible but also richand fruitful.


332

References

Ariès, P. (1968): Padri e figli nell’Europa medievale e moderna. Bari: Laterza.Baruzzi, V. (ed) (2002): Bambini bambine si fanno strada. Imola: Regione Emilia

Romagna, Editrice la Mandragora.Beck, U. (1996): Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt:

Suhrkamp.Bonifazi, C., A. Menniti, M. Misiti and R. Palomba (1999): Giovani che non lasciano il

nido: Atteggiamenti, speranze, condizioni all’uscita da casa, Working paper 01/99,Roma: Istituto di Ricerche sulla Popolazione.

Brazzoduro, M. and P. Palminiello (2002): ‘Informazioni e servizi sociali’, inBrazzoduro, M. and C. Conti (eds): Le città della capitale. Rapporti sociali e qualitàdella vita a Roma. Milano: Angeli.

Cannari, L. and D. Franco (1997): La povertà fra i minorenni in Italia: dimensioni,caratteristiche, politiche, Banca d’Italia, Temi di discussione 294.

Cavalli, A. (1993): ‘Prolungamento della fase giovanile e orientamenti al futuro’, inCavalli, A. and A. de Lillo (eds): Giovani anni 90. Terzo rapporto Iard sullacondizione giovanile in Italia. Bologna: Il Mulino: 205-228.

Conti, C. and S. Strozza (eds) (2004, forthcoming): Stranieri a Roma. Franco Angeli.de Lillo, A. (1993): ‘Orientamenti di valore e immagini della società’, in Cavalli, A. and

A. de Lillo (eds): Giovani anni 90. Terzo rapporto Iard sulla condizione giovanile inItalia. Bologna: Il Mulino: 73-101.

de Lillo, A. (1997): ‘I sistemi di valore’, in Buzzi, C., Cavalli, A. and A. de Lillo (eds):Giovani verso il Duemila. Quarto rapporto Iard sulla condizione giovanile in Italia.Bologna: Il Mulino: 341-352.

De Sandre, P., F. Onagro, R. Rettaroli and S. Salvini (eds) (1997): Matrimonio e figli:tra rinvio e rinuncia. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Ditch, J., Barnes, H. and J. Bradshaw (1996): A Synthesis of National Family Policies1995. Brussels: European Observatory on National Family Policies, Commission ofthe European Communities.

Drudi, I. and C. Filippucci (2002): ‘Il costo dei figli e dei genitori anziani’, in Osser-vatorio nazionale sulle famiglie e le politiche locali di sostegno alle responsabilitàfamiliari, Famiglie: mutamenti e politiche sociali 2. Bologna: il Mulino.

Eurostat (2002): The social situation in the European Union, 2002. Luxembourg:European Commission.

Ginsborg, P. (1998): L’Italia del tempo presente. Torino: Einaudi.Iacovou, M. (1999): ‘Young People in Europe: Two Models of Household Formation’.

Paper prepared for the International Conference on Youth Transition, Philadelphia,April 9-10.

Irp (1999): Italia. Facts and Trends in Population. Roma.Istat (1998a): Indagine Multiscopo ‘Famiglia, soggetti sociali e condizione

dell’infanzia’, provisional data.Istat (1998b): La presenza straniera in Italia negli anni ’90. Informazioni n. 61.Istat (2000a): Indagine Multiscopo ‘Famiglie, Cultura, socialità e tempo libero’.Istat (2000b): La presenza straniera in Italia: caratteristiche demografiche.

Informazioni, n. 7.

COST A19: Italy

333

Istat (2000c): Gli stranieri regolarmente presenti in Italia al 1° gennaio 2000.Statistiche in breve. Roma 28 dicembre.

Istat (2000d): Rapporto annuale. La situazione del Paese nel 1999.Istat (2002a): Annuario statistico italiano, 2001. Roma.Istat (2002b): Devianza e disagio minorile. Caratteristiche ed aspetti giudiziari.Istat (2003): Rapporto Annuale. La situazione del Paese nel 2002. Roma.Istat (1999): La povertà in Italia nel 1998. Note rapide, 14 July.Istat (2001a): Indagine sui consumi delle famiglie.Istat (2001): La povertà in Italia nel 2000. Note rapide, 31 July.Istat (2000): Rapporto annuale. La situazione del Paese nel 1999.Istituto Psicoanalitico per le ricerche sociali (2000): ‘Integrazione e identità dei minori

immigrati’, in Atti del convegno, Migrazioni, Scenari per il XXI secolo. Roma:1383-1437.

Lelleri, R. and N. Marzano (2002): ‘L’assegno al nucleo familiare e l’assegno dimaternità: alcuni dati a livello nazionale’, in Osservatorio nazionale sulle famiglie ele politiche locali di sostegno alle responsabilità familiari, Famiglie: mutamenti epolitiche sociali 2. Bologna: il Mulino.

Livi Bacci, M. (1997): ‘Abbondanza e scarsità. Le popolazioni d’Italia e d’Europa alpassaggio del millennio’, il Mulino 6: 993-1009.

Menniti, A. (1999): ‘Il tema di fondo: la permanenza in famiglia’, in Bonifazi, C., A.Menniti, M. Misiti and R. Palomba (eds): Giovani che non lasciano il nido.Atteggiamenti, speranze, condizioni all’uscita da casa. Working paper 01/99. Roma:Istituto di Ricerche sulla Popolazione: 13-22.

Millar, J. and A. Warman (1996): Family Obligations in Europe. London: FamilyPolicy Studies Centre.

Ministero del Lavoro e delle Politiche sociali (2003): Libro bianco sul welfare. Roma.Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione (1999): Esperienze e formazione dei docenti nella

scuola multiculturale.Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione (2002): Alunni con cittadinanza non italiana – a.s.

2001-2002.Palidda, S. (2000): Polizia postmoderna. Etnografia del nuovo controllo sociale.

Milano: Feltrinelli.Palomba, R. (1999): ‘I genitori: gli antagonisti inesistenti’, in Bonifazi, C., A. Menniti,

M. Misiti and R. Palomba (eds): Giovani che non lasciano il nido. Atteggiamenti,speranze, condizioni all’uscita da casa. Working paper 01/99. Roma: Istituto diRicerche sulla Popolazione: 31-37.

Qvortrup, J. (2003): ‘La relazione tra protezione e partecipazione: rischio o opportunitàper i minori o per la società adulta?’, in Colozzi I. and G. Giovannini (eds): Ragazziin Europa tra tutela, autonomia e responsabilità. Milano: Angeli: 21-41.

Rifkin, J. (2000): The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All ofLife is a Paid-For Experience. J. P. Tarcher.

Romano, M. C. (2002): ‘Nonni e nipoti: una nuova alleanza’, in Federazione NazionalePensionati Cisl (ed): Quantità e qualità. Quarto rapporto sulla condizione dellapersona anziana. Roma: Ed. Lavoro.

Rossi, N. (1997): Meno ai padri e più ai figli. Bologna: Il Mulino.


334

Sabbadini, L. L. (1999): ‘Modelli di formazione e di organizzazione della famiglia’,paper prepared for the National Conference Le famiglie interrogano le politichesociali. Bologna 29-31 March, 1999.

Saporiti, A. and G. B. Sgritta (1990): Childhood as a Social Phenomenon. NationalReport: Italy. Eurosocial Reports, 36/2. Vienna: European Centre.

Saraceno, C. (1990): Child Poverty and Deprivation in Italy: 1950 to the Present.Innocenti Occasional Papers. Firenze: Unicef.

Saraceno, C. (2002): ‘Presenza di figli e povertà delle famiglie: i dati dellaCommissione di indagine sulla esclusione sociale’, Osservatorio nazionale sullefamiglie e le politiche locali di sostegno alle responsabilità familiari, Famiglie:mutamenti e politiche sociali 2. Bologna: il Mulino.

Sgritta, G. B. (1993): ‘Povertà e diseguaglianza economica in Italia: forme, luoghi edetà’, Tutela, no. 2-3.

Sgritta, G. B. (1994a): ‘La condizione dell’infanzia’, in: Donati, P. (ed): Secondorapporto sulla famiglia in Italia. Milano: Ed. Paoline.

Sgritta, G. B. (1994b): ‘The generational division of welfare: equity and conflict’, in:Qvortrup, J., M. Bardy, G. B. Sgritta and H. Wintersberger (eds): ChildhoodMatters. Social Theory, Practice and Politics. Aldershot: Avebury.

Sgritta, G. B. (2002): ‘Le città di Roma: relazioni sociali e solidarietà’, in Brazzoduro,M. and C. Conti (eds): Le città della capitale. Rapporti sociali e qualità della vita aRoma, Milano: Angeli.

Tognetti Bordogna, M. (1994): ‘Le famiglie patchwork: matrimoni misti ericongiungimenti familiari’, Marginalità e Società n. 28.

Tonucci, F. (1999): La città dei bambini. Bari: Editori Laterza.Tonucci, F. (2002): Se i bambini dicono basta. Bari: Editori Laterza.Zanatta, A. L. (2002): ‘Conciliazione fra lavoro e famiglia’, in Osservatorio nazionale

sulle famiglie e le politiche locali di sostegno alle responsabilità familiari, Famiglie:mutamenti e politiche sociali 2. Bologna: il Mulino.

Zeiher, H. (2001): ‘Children’s islands in space and time: the impact of spatialdifferentiation on children’s ways of shaping social life’, in du Bois-Reymond, M.,H. Sünker and H. H. Krüger (eds.): Childhood in Europe. Approaches, Trends,Findings. New York: Peter Lang.

Zinnecker, J. (2001): Stadtkids: Kinderleben zwischen Strasse und Schule. Weinheim:Juventa.

Childhood in Italy: A Family Affair

Documents

Transcript of Childhood in Italy: A Family Affair