Childbearing across partnerships in Italy: Prevalence, demographic correlates, and social gradient

Abstract

Studies of childbearing across partnerships-having children with more than one partner-have generally focused on countries with relatively high separation rates. We complement this previous research with analyses for Italy using nationally representative, retrospective data and event-history techniques. This study offers three key findings. First, we detected a non-negligible share of childbearing across partnerships, although at substantially lower levels relative to other wealthy countries (5 per cent of parents aged 25-54 with at least two children). Second, multivariate analyses revealed an impressive similarity to the demographic correlates found elsewhere. Finally, we showed that childbearing across partnerships was initiated by the 'social vanguard' of new family behaviours but then diffused among the least well-off. Overall, this paper adds to the growing literature on childbearing across partnerships by showing the phenomenon to be demographically and sociologically relevant, even in countries with strong family ties and a limited diffusion of union dissolution.

Pathways of family change. A typology of multipartnered fertility life courses in five Northern European countries

“…It is noteworthy that the proportion of women in the analytical sample is also significantly higher (p-value<0.05) than the proportion of all multiparous mothers in the general GGS-II sample (59.7%). This finding is in line with previous research showing that women are more likely to experience MPF in both European and American contexts (Jalovaara and Kreyenfeld, 2020;Monte, 2019;Pirani and Vignoli, 2022;Thomson et al, 2021). Concerning the gender composition of our typology, women are overrepresented in the Quick to union dissolution cluster, where they make up 76.9% of cluster members.…”

“…Lappegård and Rønsen attribute this U-shaped association between SES and MPF to both higher union instability among disadvantaged men and higher chances of entering a new union after a separation among highly educated fathers. However, MPF does not follow a social gradient in Germany (Jalovaara and Kreyenfeld, 2020) and among younger cohorts in Italy (Pirani and Vignoli, 2022). The mixed empirical evidence regarding the social gradient of MPF suggests there might be different mechanisms linking SES and MPF in different countries.…”