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The Spreading of Cohabitation as a Diffusion Process: Evidence from Italy

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Abstract

Drawing on seminal work by Nazio and Blossfeld (Eur J Popul 19(1):47–82, 2003) and Di Giulio and Rosina (Demogr Res 16(14):441–468, 2007), this paper tests whether the recent spread of cohabitation in Italy has followed the typical pattern of diffusion of innovation processes. In doing so, we contribute to the debate on the determinants of the emergence of “new” family behaviour. Following previous literature, innovative behaviour should spread initially through direct social modelling, i.e. interpersonal communication among highly selected individuals (peer effects). At later stages, the diffusion should spread through knowledge awareness of the innovation, i.e. communication with previous generations (pre-cohort effects), so that also less selected individuals are prone to adopt the new behaviour. In the specific Italian context—a Catholic, “familistic” setting, with high normative pressure and importance of parental approval—we surmise the influence of previous generations to be dominant. We use data from the “Family and Social Subjects” survey carried out by Istat (2009) and apply Event History Analysis in the form of competing-risks exponential models to study Italian women’s transition to cohabitation as first partnership. Results suggest that the most important driver of the spreading of cohabitation in Italy is represented by the degree of its diffusion among older cohorts. However, we find a positive and significant interaction between women’s education and peer effects at the onset of the phenomenon, in line with the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) hypothesis. Cohabitation is also more likely if parents experienced separation/divorce and, more generally, if the environment of the family of origin can be described as “SDT-friendly”.

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Notes

  1. From now on, “direct social modelling” and “peer effect” will be employed as synonyms, as well as “knowledge-awareness” and “pre-cohort effect”.

  2. IARD is a research institute which focuses on the condition of Italian “youth” and carried out surveys on representative samples of young people in Italy in 1983, 1987, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 (see Buzzi et al. 2007 for full bibliographical references). The IARD definition of “youth” changed over time: the age-range is 15–24 in the first two waves, 15–29 in the third and fourth ones, and 15–34 in the last two waves. For the descriptive analyses presented in Fig. 1, we only considered individuals aged 15–24.

  3. The effect of parental separation/divorce on children’s cohabitation decisions is not necessarily related to the transmission of post-materialist values and lifestyle choices. It is not easy to disentangle empirically whether the latter mechanism prevails over the lack of parental control and anomie. We hypothesise both mechanisms to be at work. However, while our hypothesis H2 puts more emphasis on the second mechanism, our hypothesis H2b addresses the effect of parental separation/divorce as related to the cultural transmission of new family values.

  4. For the same reason, it might be argued that employed women need to agree less on a compromise with their parents’ expectations, for instance to be financially supported in the purchase of first home, when deciding to marry versus starting a nonmarital union. If this argument holds, a negative interaction between father’s education and women’s employment condition could be expected. On the contrary, additional analyses revealed that the positive effect of being employed is actually enhanced by having a high educated father. This suggests that non-employed women’s chances to cohabit are rather small and parental approval becomes salient when women enter the labour market.

  5. The latter interpretation is supported by descriptive evidence showing that the proportion of marriages preceded by cohabitation increased in the same period in both Northern and Southern Italy (Castiglioni and Dalla Zuanna 2009). Differences between the two areas could be understood as a matter of intensity, rather than of timing, and religiosity might have played an important role in this respect. The regional distribution of marital separations and cohabitations, and its change over time, is indeed strongly associated with regional differences in the pace and extent of the secularisation process (ibid.).

  6. Actually, in Model 4 peer effects become negative and significant. This could be due to the fact that the two diffusion-related variables are highly correlated and, in such a case, it is possible that highly positive correlation leads to negative correlation with the dependent variable for one of the two predictors, while the correlation between the other variable and the dependent one is inflated. In these cases, it is better not to attach undue weight to any specific coefficient, but rather evaluate the general pattern of the results. In fact, Model 4 does not substantially change the general interpretation of the unfolding of the diffusion process, given that the coefficient for peer effects becomes not significant in the subsequent model and that pre-cohort effects are systematically higher.

  7. A significant, positive interaction is found also in the last two models among women attending upper secondary school. However, a limited number of cohabitation events occur while women attend upper secondary school (54 in the total observed time span). In addition, among the youngest cohorts events occurring in the early stages of women’s life cycle are overrepresented due to right-censoring.

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Acknowledgments

Raffaele Guetto and Stefani Scherer gratefully acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the 7th FP, ERC-StG 2010, grant 263183 - FamIne—Families of Inequalities, www.unitn.it/famine. The authors would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Via Verdi, 26, 38122, Trento, Italy

    Raffaele Guetto, Moreno Mancosu & Stefani Scherer

  2. Collegio Carlo Alberto, Via Real Collegio 30, Moncalieri, 10024, Turin, Italy

    Moreno Mancosu

  3. Duepuntozero Research, Doxa, Via Bartolomeo Panizza, 7, 20144, Milan, Italy

    Giulia Torricelli

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  1. Raffaele Guetto
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  2. Moreno Mancosu
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  4. Giulia Torricelli
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Correspondence to Raffaele Guetto.

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Guetto, R., Mancosu, M., Scherer, S. et al. The Spreading of Cohabitation as a Diffusion Process: Evidence from Italy. Eur J Population 32, 661–686 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-016-9380-6

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