Alessandro Rosina

• Professor (Full) at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Couples’ stability at younger ages is often a precondition for family formation and childbearing. While there is evidence that the COVID-19 crisis has impacted union formation in high-income countries, micro-level studies on union dissolution are almost absent. Our data stems from the Youth Report project of Toniolo Institute, collected in April/Ma...

Les données recueillies au début de la pandémie de Covid-19 révèlent des effets contrastés sur le nombre de naissances en Europe. Cette note de recherche compare les tendances régionales du taux global de fécondité (TGF) avant et après le début de la pandémie dans les quatre pays européens les plus peuplés : l’Allemagne, l’Espagne, la France et l’I...

The not in employment, education or training (NEET) category is now widely used in many contexts to refer to young people who are not studying, not working and not in training. However, this category is very broad and its delimitation does not always allow for successful interventions and policies. This paper aims to psychologically profile the div...

Couple stability at younger ages is a precondition for family formation and childbearing. While there is evidence that the Covid-19 crisis, bringing about a major economic recession, has impacted on union formation in high income countries, micro-level studies on union dissolution are almost absent. Our explorative research provides descriptive evi...

This study accounts for the heterogeneous consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on fertility plans and behaviours, by focusing on the motivations for suspended pre-Covid fertility plans and on those for new fertility plans that arose during the pandemic. We rely on unique data collected with a repeated cross-sectional survey conducted in April/May...

This study investigates the association between objective and subjective indicators of economic uncertainty, generated by the COVID-19 health and economic crisis, and young Italians’ fertility plans during the 2020. We use unique repeated cross-sectional data, collected at different time points during the pandemic (March and October/November 2020)...

Empirical evidence collected at the beginning of the pandemic has shown that the COVID-19 related economic crisis has depressed the fertility plans of young people in Europe, especially in Italy and among those with more vulnerable positions in the labour market. This paper explores the heterogeneity of the pandemic effect on fertility intentions a...

While early evidence of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on births has suggested a depressive effect on fertility intentions and behaviours, not all individuals have equally suffered the indirect consequences of the pandemic, and especially those related with the increased uncertainty brought by the economic recession. This study accounts for the...

Early evidence shows mixed effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on births in Europe. This study examines changes in births at the regional level in the four European countries that have been affected by the pandemic earlier and to a larger extent. It is also investigated the association between birth changes and some labour market characteristics, the...

With the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Europe during the first months of 2020, most of the governments imposed restrictive measures to people mobility and physical distance (the lockdown), which severely impacted on the economic activities and performance of many countries. Thus, the health emergency turned rapidly into in an economic crisis...

The health and economic crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in recent human history. We investigate the role of objective and subjective indicators of economic uncertainty due to the COVID-19 crisis in young Italians’ fertility plans during the year 2020. We use unique repeated cross-sectional data, collected at different tim...

OBJECTIVE This study offers a descriptive overview of changes in fertility plans during the COVID- 19 crisis in a sample of the young population (18–34) in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The data were collected between 27 March and 7 April 2020. RESULTS Our results show that fertility plans have been negatively revised in al...

This paper aims to explore whether the rise of health emergency due to the Covid-19 has delayed or vanished young people intention to leave the parental home during the 2020 in five European countries: Italy, Germany, France, Spain and UK. Using data from an international survey from the “Youth Project”, carried out by the Toniolo Institute of Adva...

Youth unemployment rates are still in alerting levels for many countries, among which Italy. Direct consequences include poverty, social exclusion, and criminal behaviours, while negative impact on the future employability and wage cannot be obscured. In this study, we employ survey data together with social media data, and in particular likes on F...

Youth unemployment rates are still in alerting levels for many countries, among which Italy. Direct consequences include poverty, social exclusion, and criminal behaviours, while negative impact on the future employability and wage cannot be obscured. In this study, we employ survey data together with social media data, and in particular likes on F...

Job insecurity and precariousness lead Young Italian people to stop in their paths of life and life plan. The effect is to lead them in a spiral of marginality and demotivation typical of NEETs (young people who do not work, do not study and are not in a period training), with a serious impairment of the quality of life. The aim of this work is to...

The studies in this volume are based on the data from the first international survey on the state of the new generations in the age of Coronavirus and on post-pandemic expectations, which was funded by the Osservatorio Giovani dell’Istituto Giuseppe Toniolo di Studi Superiori and conducted by Ipsos between the end of March and the beginning of Apri...

Using data from the “Youth Project”, a survey carried out by the Toniolo Institute for Advanced Studies, we provide evidence of the determinants of the propensity to leave the native country by young Europeans and show how this phenomenon depends on the economic opportunities offered by the countries of origin. In addition, we underline the effect...

Psychological, political, cultural, and even societal factors are entangled in the reasoning and decision-making process towards vaccination, rendering vaccine hesitancy a complex issue. Here, administering a series of surveys via a Facebook-hosted application, we study the worldviews of people that “Liked” supportive or vaccine resilient Facebook...

Social media in scientific research offer a unique digital observatory of human behaviours and hence great opportunities to conduct research at large scale answering complex sociodemographic questions. We focus on the identification and assessment of biases in social media administered surveys. This study aims to shed light on population, self-sele...

Il tema del lavoro ha acquistato negli anni di crisi una crescente attenzione nelle famiglie italiane. Si tratta di una preoccupazione trasversale ma che tocca in modo particolare le nuove generazioni. Il tasso di occupazione dei giovani già prima della crisi risultava sceso sotto il 35%, per poi inabissarsi negli anni peggiori della recessione su...

In this paper we discuss the differences in fertility levels and timing among Italian regions. We firstly present the trends that characterized these differences in the last forty years along the North-South divide. We show, in particular, that in the first decade of this century the total fertility rate in the Northern area surprisingly surpassed...

Il capitolo metta a tema i progetti di autonomia e di formazione di una nuova famiglia dei giovani italiani. Un tema particolarmente importante anche per l’impatto che il continuo rinvio dei progetti di vita delle nuove generazioni produce sulla riduzione della già particolarmente bassa fecondità italiana. Al fine di analizzare il rapporto tra le a...

Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) young people are an emerging at-risk-of-social exclusion group in contemporary society. The present research aimed to investigate NEETs’ sociodemographic characteristics and some variables crucial in the transition to adulthood: perceptions about the future job opportunities, their desire to start a f...

Durante gli ultimi decenni la struttura sociale ed economica delle societa occidentali ha sperimentato profondi e radicali cambiamenti. Quelli che fra tutti hanno pagato di piu per il contesto economico avverso sono stati i giovani. Il problema di una lunga attesa per la prima occupazione e gli alti tassi di disoccupazione ha interessato le scienze...

This work investigates the relationship between family variables (parents’ educational level, relationship quality, intrusiveness, support, and autonomy) and young Italians’ status as NEETs (Not in Employment, Education, or Training). We used data from a representative sample of 9,087 young Italians. Each participant filled out an anonymous online...

Using couple data from a longitudinal study conducted in Italy, a country with persistently low fertility levels, we examined the effect of partners' discrepant child-timing intentions on reproductive behavior. We found that the effect of couple disagreement on subsequent fertility is parity-specific and does not depend on whether only the male or...

Objective: The study aims at analysing the recent trends in fertility in Italy and at discussing its possible future trends. Methods: We analyse the evolution of demographic indicators, such as the total fertility rate and the maternal age in Italy, in the last 30 years and we look for the most relevant determinants of birth postponement. We also d...

Most of the international studies on fertility are based on a female perspective. A major difficulty in couple-level research is the need for high-quality data that includes information on both partners. Using couple data from a longitudinal study conducted in Italy [2003-2007], a country with persistently low fertility levels, we examined the e...

This study, based on the data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, deals with the labour market participation of mid-aged women and the reconciliation with family responsibilities. The analysis focuses on Italy, a fast ageing country with a very low female occupation rate. By performing a comparison with Sweden and France, we...

Postponing the start of childbearing raises the question of fertility postponed versus fertility foregone. One of the limitations of previous studies of 'How late can you wait?' is that any observed decline in the probability of conception with age could be due to a decline in fecundability with age or due to a decline in coital frequency with age...

Beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, infant mortality in Veneto (a region in northeastern Italy) began to increase, starting at 250‰ and rising to 350‰ by the mid-nineteenth century—one of the highest levels ever recorded in modern Europe. This dramatic change—in a period of worsening economic conditions—was due to variations in winter neonata...

Using data on 2356 Italian couples from the longitudinal survey on Family and Social Subjects conducted between 2003 and 2007, we examine the relationship between child-timing intentions and subsequent reproductive outcomes. Our hypothesis is that in Italy the lack of agreement between partners has an inhibiting effect on couple's pregnancy-seeking...

This study aims at analysing the process of family formation by adopting a couple's perspective. Using household-level micro data, we examine the determinants of the partners' (contrasting) fertility intentions for the first and the second child. Italy is characterized by a high discrepancy between desired and actual fertility. There is a predomina...

Beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, infant mortality in Veneto (a region in northeastern Italy) began to increase, starting at 250% o and rising to 350% o by the mid-nineteenth century—one of the highest levels ever recorded in modern Europe. This dramatic change—in a period of worsening economic conditions—was due to variations in winter neo...

Fertility levels in developed countries have declined dramatically in the late XXth century. The decline was a consequence of different causes, among them the rapid increase in female education. As women invest in their educational and professional careers, they begin postponing family formation and childbearing. In this paper, by using data from t...

The aim of this article is to examine the determinants of couples' childbearing intentions, by explicitly taking into account the agreement or disagreement of the two members of the couple. The relevance of the partner's reproductive intentions has been well recognised in the literature, but few studies have provided in-depth analyses of the fertil...

This study aims to describe the process of birth postponement and recovery in Italy, a country with persistent very low fertility levels. The case of Italy is particularly significant given that this country carries great demographic weight in "Southern Europe"; an area characterized by cultural and institutional specificities which have important...

In Veneto (northeastern Italy) infant mortality increased, starting at 250 parts per thousand in the mid-17(th) century, and reaching 350 parts per thousand during 1750-1850, one of the higher level never recorded in Europe. By the early 1900s, however, infant mortality had steadily dropped to 150 parts per thousand, the lowest level among the Ital...

Billari F. C., Rosina A., Ranaldi R. and Romano M. C. Young adults living apart and together (LAT) with parents: a three-level analysis of the Italian case, Regional Studies. This paper introduces the notion of living apart together (LAT) with one's parents as a status in the transition to adulthood. LAT with parents is defined as the situation in...

The aim of this study is to investigate the role of genetics and environment in susceptibility to breast cancer (frailty). An interdisciplinary approach was adopted, combining a correlated frailty-mixture model with genetic equations, allowing for decomposition of the frailty variance into genetic and environmental components. In addition, the poss...

Cohabitation has been spreading in the population during the last thirty years, and this is one of the most striking aspects of wider social changes that have taken place throughout the industrialized world. However, this change did not take place uniformly across Europe. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the current debate around the c...

Recently there has been increasing interest in the estimation of age-specific fecundability as a result of the progressive postponement of age at family formation in Western countries. It must be noted, however, that the possible negative effects of the postponement could act not only on the physiological component of the ability to conceive but al...

The model proposed in this paper combines a logistic regression model and a Weibull regression model for the analysis of current-status data. This joint model allows a simultaneous estimation of two sets of effects on the covariates: one on the probability that the event occurs (also known as quantum) and the other on the timing of the event. Thus,...

The influence of religion on an individual’s life-course in general – and on sexual behaviour in particular – has long been recognised by social scientists, although few studies have explored the reciprocal causal interdependence between religiosity and sexual debut, mainly in an overwhelmingly Catholic European context. In this paper, we study the...

Obiettivo del presente lavoro è l'analisi della relazione tra età alla prima unione e transizione al primo figlio in un contesto di bassissima fecondità. A differenza di altri studi sulla fecondità, questo lavoro prende esplicitamente in considerazione le caratteristiche maschili (quali coorte e regione di nascita, istruzione, occupazione, età al m...

Italy is among the OECD countries with both the highest ratios of older persons per worker and the lowest female participation rates. As the Mediterranean health-care system is based on the crucial support provided by the fifty year-old women in the family, the two processes are strictly intertwined. In this paper, the compatibility between the gro...

Although still modest, non response rates in multipurpose household surveys have recently increased, especially in some metropolitan areas. Previous analyses have shown that refusal risk depends on the interviewers' characteristics. The aim of this paper is to explain the difference in refusal risk among metropolitan areas by analysing the strategi...

Demographers, epidemiologists and clinicians have long been interested in the estimation of age-specific fecundability. With the progressive postponement of age at family formation in Western countries, this topic has recently become the focus of renewed attention. In order to correctly estimate the effect of biological ageing on fecundability it i...

Delaying the start of childbearing raises the issue of fertility postponed versus fertility foregone. One of the limits of previous studies of ``How late can you wait?'' is the difficulty of controlling for sexual activity. Data on the frequency and timing of intercourse within a menstrual cycle are uncommon. We use such data from the Menstrual Cyc...

Unlike the countries of north-western Europe, marriage in Italy has maintained a crucial role in the process of family formation. This raise doubts about the possibility that the theory of "second demographic transition" could adequately account for the behaviour of the European population living south of the Alps. The aim of this paper is twofold:...

In questo lavoro presentiamo un'analisi esplorativa, a livello micro, dell'impatto della cadenza e della sequenza degli eventi caratterizzanti il processo di transizione dei giovani all'età adulta sui livelli di fecondità. I dati utilizzati derivano dall'indagine ISTAT "Famiglia, soggetti sociali e condizioni dell'infanzia", condotta nel 1998. Ques...

Riassunto: In questo studio si considera una particolare implicazione della fecondità posticipata: il rischio di malformazioni congenite diagnosticate alla nascita. L'obiettivo principale è lo studio della relazione tra età al parto e rischio di malformazioni, al netto dell'effetto di fattori sociali, biologici e territoriali. I dati sono tratti da...

The inverse projection technique, developed by Ronald Lee in the late 1960s, is a well-known method used for “inferring levels and changes in fertility, mortality and population age distributions from observed series of births and deaths, along with some information about population size” [5]. It is a simple and flexible method to use. Over time, s...

Many studies of intergenerational exchanges include parent-child proximity as an exogenous explanatory variable. Proximity may itself be a consequence of intergenerational resource flows, however. We analyze patterns of economic transfers between generations and their relationship to parent-child proximity in Italy. Parental support for a child's h...

Several studies have explored the impact of marital bereavement on mortality, while increasing emphasis has recently been placed on genetic factors influencing longevity - in this paper, we study the impact of losing the spouse and losing the co-twin, for twins aged 50 to 70. We use data from the Danish Twin Registry and the Population Register of...

We propose a mixture model that combines a discrete-time survival model for analyzing the correlated times between recurrent events, e.g. births, with a logistic regression model for the probability of never experiencing the event of interest, i.e., being a long-term survivor. The proposed survival model incorporates both observed and unobserved he...

La perdita del coniuge e del co-gemello hanno mostrato in studi precedenti una forte associazione con l'aumento della mortalità successiva all'evento. In questo articolo studiamo l'impatto di entrambe le perdite su un campione di ultra-settantacinquenni, usando il Longitudinal Study of Ageing of Danish Twins. Dapprima viene analizzato l'effetto sul...

La letteratura sulla fecondabilità ha finora investigato il problema in oggetto o da un punto di vista trasversale o analizzando dati di serie storiche. In questo lavoro si riesaminano i dati raccolti da Marshall, relativi a numerosi cicli mestruali delle stesse donne. Si usa un modello lineare misto Gaussiano, che mostra come la lunghezza della fa...

PIP "In this paper, it is the purpose of the authors to show how to apply--in historical demography--some statistical techniques to estimate within the same model the age pattern of mortality, the intensity of relevant crises, as well as the possible presence of cohort effects.... In particular, we expect to find higher mortality effects for cohort...

PIP: Population trends in the Veneto, a region in northeastern Italy, are analyzed over the course of the nineteenth century. The method of inverse projection is applied to data from the available Austrian sources.

During the ancient régime in the Northern Italy neonatal mortality was very high, particularly in winter. Although the connection between neonatal mortality and low temperatures may seem immediate, many research problems are still open. Recently, some meteorological checked and corrected daily data has been published, concerning temperatures for so...

SOMMARIO. E' in corso una riduzione strutturale del peso della popolazione giovanile su livelli mai sperimentati in passato. Si tratta di un fenomeno storicamente inedito, del quale l'Italia è una delle punte più avanzate. Nel nostro paese la popolazione under 25 è scesa sotto il 25%, a fronte di un livello medio europeo poco sotto il 30%.. Un term...

Congenital malformations (CM) are organ defects (anomalies) existing at birth. The aim of this study is twofold. First we produce a map of the risk of CM in Lombardy at the municipality level which, up to our knowledge, is still lacking in the literature. Second, we investigate the possible association between CM and industrial pollution sources. "...