Rising marital disruption in Italy and its correlates

The implications of marital instability for a woman’s fertility: Empirical evidence from Italy

“…12 In line with the literature (Vignoli and Ferro 2009), separated women were found to be more highly educated and more likely to be employed than women in intact marriages. This may be at least partially due to the fact that the former belong to a younger cohort than the latter.…”

Things change: Women’s and men’s marital disruption dynamics in Italy during a time of social transformations, 1970-2003

“…For example, a positive relationship between women's educational attainment and divorce risk is found for the Netherlands by Poortman and Kalmijn (2002) and for Italy (e.g., De Rose 1992, Vignoli and Ferro 2009). On the other hand in Australia Bracher et al (1993) found no relation between women's education and divorce.…”

“…In these social strata the traditional image of the family was weakening, and the psychological, moral, social, and economic constraints that prevented the dissolution of an unhappy marriage were frailer than in other social groups. In addition the very few micro-level studies available in Italy all point to a women's positive gradient between marital instability and the level of education (De Rose 1992;De Rose and Rosina 1999;Arosio 2006;Vignoli and Ferro 2009;Todesco 2010). Interestingly the effect of education on the risks of dissolution appears much weaker for men (De Rose and Di Cesare 2003).…”

“…For this reason studies on marriage dissolution in Italy normally focus on separations and not divorces (e.g., De Rose 1992; Castiglioni and Dalla Zuanna 2008;Vignoli and Ferro 2009). For instance, of the total number of legal separations obtained in 1995, only 60% ended in a divorce during the following decade.…”

“…The analysis of the determinants of marital disruption is nevertheless essential to better understand this new phase of Italian family dynamics (Salvini 2009). This paper follows the work of Vignoli and Ferro (2009) that studied the basic correlates of women's marital disruption, with at least two new additions.…”