I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Dr. Susan Grayzel for her thoughtful guidance, extensive feedback, and enthusiastic support throughout my dissertation process. I would also like to say a special thank you to Dr. Schenck, who, in addition to serving on my thesis committee, has encouraged and enabled me to continue studying the language and culture of Italy through the Croft Institute. In addition, I would like to thank Professor Chiarella Esposito for serving on my thesis committee and for her helpful suggestions and revisions of my dissertation drafts.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the decline in the birth rate in post-war Italy and identify its causes. This study shows that there has been a significant change in cultural values that has led to the decline in fertility in Italy since 1970. The thesis then delves into a more comprehensive study of the 1960s and 1970s, the decades that mark the beginning of the decline in fertility. in Italy.
An investigation of the new attitudes and behaviors of Italian women in the areas of labor force participation, marriage and the division of unpaid work helps to demonstrate the underlying causes of fertility decline: the devaluation of the traditional family structure. Therefore, the changing patterns in these spheres are shown to stem from the same cause that this thesis postulates has led to the decline in fertility in Italy: a significant change in cultural values.
INTRODUCTION TO FERTILITY DECLINE
The low fertility rate in Italy is important not only because it represents a drastic change from Italy's past, but also because of its implications for the nation's future. The low fertility rate in Italy has been seen by other researchers and demographers as a cultural shift as opposed to an economic one. Paths to voluntary childlessness in Italy,' Maria Letizia Tanturri and Letizia Mencarini argue that the decline in the fertility rate in Italy is.
Family attitudes, double burden and fertility intentions in Italy” apply the international demographic transition, the Second Demographic Transition (“SDT”) to the Italian case. 34; Family Attitudes, Double Burden, and Fertility Intentions in Italy." Annual Meeting of the American Population Association. White, Laura Bernardi, and Guiseppe Gabrielli examine both of these perspectives and assess their explanatory power for Italy's low fertility rate. 18.
This study highlights the incompleteness of using Female Labor Force Participation as the sole or primary factor in the change in fertility rate in Italy. The study ends with an acknowledgment that theories explain the low fertility rate in Italy by the female workforce.
SETTING THE STAGE
Italy has strong historical and cultural ties to the Catholic Church, with the papacy located in the heart of Rome and the overwhelming majority of the Italian population identifying as Catholic. Out of the Second World War and the cloud of fascism, the Italian family of the mid-twentieth century was rooted in tradition and relatively upheld. Catholic culture remained incredibly influential in post-war Italy, especially within the family's empire.
A close examination of the Italian case reveals that this women's movement was born out of drastic and continuing gender inequality. Feminist publications from this period emphasized the connection between patriarchy in society and inequality in the family. These changes, spurred by the women's movement, can be seen as both the consequence of and a catalyst for the roots of modern Italian cultural values.20 Important to measure the effectiveness and widespread nature of the Italian women's movement in this time are three.
These reforms: the legalization of divorce, the legalization of birth control and the legalization of abortion, reflected the success of the women's movement and helped women's social progress across the peninsula. In May, percent of the Italian population flocked to the polls to cast their vote on the divorce law. The rise and growing strength of the women's movement during the six year interim between the two above court cases is indicative of a changing society.
Code) the penal code of the Fascist regime, and the ban on abortion continued to stand as law after the creation of the Italian Republic in 1946.30. In 1978, responding to the demands of the women's movement, the Italian legislature adopted Norme per la Tutela Sociale della Maternita e sull'Interruzione Volontaria della Gravidanza (Norms for social protection of maternity and voluntary termination of pregnancy).32 not completely. These referendums showed that when presented with a choice, Italian women were rejecting the constraints of the traditional family structure.
Italian women's answers to this question show that during the time of the women's movement and when the fertility rate first began to decline, Italian women were also women. The answers to questions about life as a housewife applied to a large proportion of women in Italy in 1977. During this time, only 29% of Italian women worked in the paid workforce. Thus, housewives' responses reveal the attitudes of most of the female population.43 When women described.
The responses of Italian women to these surveys show that they saw the limitations of the traditional family structure as having a direct limiting force on their personality. Furthermore, it highlights the incredible power the women's movement had in publicly accepting and normalizing women working outside the home.
A CHANGED CULTURE
These women recognize the connection between Italian women's reduced desire to have children and Italy's falling birth rate; however, their perspective differs from that of the country by arguing that Italian institutions and practices have failed to develop in a way that allows women to have children and an autonomous lifestyle. Starting from the transformative decade of the 1970s, women's higher education and labor force participation rates have steadily increased in Italy. In 1970, the year that marked the beginning of a dramatic decline in the birth rate, 26.4% of Italian women did paid work outside the home.
During this time of changing social attitudes and legal structures towards family and children, there was also an obvious shift in Italian women's view of work outside the home. These changing patterns of work suggest that the increase in women's participation in the workplace is due to the same forces that have shaped the new face. Although there is scientific and analytical evidence of a link between women's participation rates in the workplace and declining birth rates, both questions arise.
The particularities of the Italian labor market have influenced the fertility patterns of employed women; But when fertility reached its lowest point in 1995, female labor force participation in Italy was only 35.7%. Italy currently has the second lowest female labor force participation rate in the EU, second only to Malta, yet the country has reached one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. To gain a more complete understanding of the declining fertility rate, it is necessary to examine the transformation of marriage in the country.
Its legalization marked the triumph of the women's movement and opened a new range of family choices to the Italian people. In the cases of female labor force participation rates and marriage rates, the increasing desire for autonomy and the declining influence of the traditional family concept have been shown to affect choices related to employment, marriage, and fertility. More than any other Western European country, a particular aspect of the Italian women's movement in the 1970s was the demand for wages for domestic work.
Lack of a flexible labor market structure and low access to and significant costs of childcare services have been two of the most frequently cited reasons for the influence of the female workforce on the fertility decline in Italy. This study of the decline in the fertility rate in Italy has attempted to complicate the existing research in the field by examining the particularities of the Italian case. Data were presented to reinforce the view that, rather than being considered a cause of fertility decline, an increase in female participation in the Italian labor force, corresponding to fertility decline, represents a rejection of the traditional family structure.
Therefore, it becomes more complicated to reconcile the argument of this increase in female paid labor with one of the lowest fertility rates in the entire world. The conditions of the Italian labor market (such as problems with re-entry after motherhood and limited access to childcare) offer women a set of. However, the causes of the decline in the marriage rate support the claim that a significant shift in cultural values has taken place in Italy.
34; Toward a Better Theory of Very Low Fertility: Lessons from Italy." American Population Association Annual Meeting.
CONCLUSIONS
