Attitudes and Behaviours of Family Formation: The Consequences of Parental Divorce

Fausta Ongaro, Università di Padova
Stefano Mazzuco, Università di Padova

There is a considerable literature on the effects parental divorce has on several child outcomes such as age at marriage, marriage stability, cohabitation and attitudes toward divorce. Such literature is much less wide where prevalence of divorce has remained relatively low and therein lay the seeds of the lack of studies on children of separated couples. This happens in Italy, even though in the recent past, we observed a rapid increase of separations also in this country where the phenomenon is acquiring social relevance. Moreover, Italian context is largely different from U.S., and this can bring about some differences in the effect of parental divorce on children. For instance, Italy is well known for its late transition to adulthood, in such a context is still true that parental divorce makes children marry earlier? In this work we analyze these questions using data from a national survey conducted in 2003.