Abstract
Legal separation is a crucial step in the dissolving of marriages in Italy. Marriage and legal separation data come from administrative data sources and have been part of the civil registration and vital statistics system for a long time. These data make it possible to constantly monitor evolution of marital unions formation and dissolution over time and space. This study highlights the potential of combining administrative data at a macro level, aggregated by selected characteristics of the marriage and of the spouses. Data collection on legal separations is a complex process that brings together records from different administrative sources that have different transmission procedures. The system has rapidly evolved in recent years because of important normative changes. Pooling the two exhaustive data sources on marriages and separations we calculate duration-specific separation rates by selected spouses’ and wedding characteristics and estimate survival curves for 1975 marriage cohorts onward. Although the propensity to separate is increasing across marriage cohorts, the most recent first-marriage cohorts—those celebrated since the beginning of the new millennium—show a decreasing tendency to separate after short marriage durations. The most fragile unions are those celebrated in a civil ceremony in the north of Italy and that choose the separation of property regime. Couples in which the bride is more educated than the groom show a higher risk of separating. Differences by geographical area and celebration rite tend to reduce over time. This study contributes to existing information about the propensity to separate in Italy and the role that some characteristics of weddings and spouses play. It shows the potential for integrating information from marriage and separation registers when dealing with a relatively rare phenomenon at the population level and with information not usually collected in social surveys.
Highlights
The radical changes in family life that occurred all over Europe since the end of the 1960s are the distinctive patterns of what has been called the Second Demographic Transition (Lesthaeghe, 1992; Van de Kaa, 1987)
The long-term trend of increasing marital dissolution observed through legal separations and its progressive anticipation with respect to the duration of the marriage (AISP, 2011; Castiglioni & Dalla-Zuanna, 2008; Institute of Statistics (Istat), 2008) seems to stop with the onset of the new millennium
Pooling the two exhaustive administrative sources of data of first marriages and of legal separations and calculating survival indicators, we described the marital dissolution process by marriage duration and selected characteristics of marriage cohorts in Italy from 1975 onwards
Summary
The radical changes in family life that occurred all over Europe since the end of the 1960s are the distinctive patterns of what has been called the Second Demographic Transition (Lesthaeghe, 1992; Van de Kaa, 1987). This process grew out of an increasing individualization of attitudes and behaviours that multiplied options relating to the forming of Guarneri et al Genus (2021) 77:28 family unions and reproductive choices, such as the postponing of union formation, the increase in premarital cohabitation, the decline in marriage and fertility, the spread of new family forms, and the increase in unions dissolution (Sobotka & Toulemon, 2008). A number of studies on Italy, or involving the country in comparative research, highlighted the role that the socioeconomic resources of the partners and of the couple itself, namely, female education and income, play in the risks of marital dissolution (Blossfeld et al, 1995; De-Rose, 1992; Härkonen & Dronkers, 2006; Kalmijn, 2007; Salvini & Vignoli, 2011; Vignoli et al, 2018)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
