The family in Europe” “” “

A family “in the plural”, rather heterogeneous, but with some features shared in common between the “nordic” countries and the countries of the Mediterranean area. That’s the portrait of the family in Europe, as it emerges from the last Report of the CISF (International Centre of Studies on the Family) on the family in Italy, with the title “Identity and variety of the family. The phenomenon of ‘pluralization'”. Number of members. From just over two members to a maximum of 3.3: that is the average size of the family in Europe. Over the last few years there has been a marked diffusion in Europe of the single-person family, up to three times more frequent in the countries of the extreme North than in those of the Mediterranean area (39.6% in Sweden and 13.4% in Spain are the two highpoints in the two respective areas). The percentage of families with children is also very varied in our continent: the percentage ranges from 80.9% in Ireland with an average presence of 2.5 children per family to minimum levels of below 50% (the record is once again Sweden with 46.9%) with on average just over 1.5 children per family. Geographical differences. Regrouping the data, the basic heterogeneity can be broken down into two blocs of similar countries, in general characterized by geographical proximity and shared traditions and culture: the group of the nordic countries (to which Switzerland too can be associated), distinguished by an extremely reduced average number of children (also due to the high presence of single-person families) and by a low percentage of families with children, contrasts with the countries of the Mediterranean area that, together with Ireland and Luxembourg, present diametrically opposed characteristics: relatively more numerous families, low presence of single-person families, high incidence of families with children. Single-parent families. One characteristic that is shared by European nations is that of single-parent families: a typically female form of family that is present everywhere, in over three-quarters of the continent with percentages that vary from 87% in Finland to 76% in Italy and in Holland. The “traditional” concept of the family is also changing: of the approximately 7 million babies born in Europe each year, 9 out of 10 are born to a family with father and mother in countries like Italy, Belgium or Spain, but the percentage is reduced to 7 births out of 10 in France, and barely exceeds 5 out of 10 in Norway and Austria; as for Sweden, only a minority of Swedish children are born into a two-parent family. Divorces and separations. The frequency with which European adolescents have to cope with the experience of the divorce or separation of their own parents is growing. In countries like Spain and Italy the phenomenon is still fairly rare, but is significantly on the increase in Latvia, Sweden, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and France. The contraction of the average number of children per family (comprised between the extremes of 1.8% in Ireland and 1.2% in Italy), the tendency for mothers to defer to a later age and the increase in the frequency of children born to unmarried couples (in Europe, on average, one child out of four is born out of wedlock): these three phenomena “photograph” the evolution of the European family in the last few decades, in a situation characterized by annual divorce rates (with the single exception of Latvia) which have grown on average by one point. Consequently, the number of so-called “reconstructed families” is growing: their percentage varies from just under 5% in Finland and Hungary to less than 2% in Italy. Lastly, another key percentage can be pointed out: growing numbers of women prefer cohabitation to marriage, with a percentage of 40% among the Swedes, about 20% among the French and Norwegians and some 15% among the Austrians, in contrast to 2-3% among Spanish and Italian women. Maria Michela Nicolais