Italian families have changed. Today there are 26,206,246 (+6.5% compared to 2011) but they are increasingly smaller. In ten years (Istat data), 1 million 200 thousand families have disappeared and single-parent households have increased by 44%. In 8 out of 10 cases these are single mothers with their children, but single fathers are on the rise.
The data, referring to the period from 2011 to 2021, highlights a clear social change. Couples with children, while remaining the most numerous, decreased by over 1.2 million, going from 8.8 to 7.5 million. This is a decline of 14%, which continues a trend already observed over the last twenty years. Today they represent 45.8% of households, down from 52.7% in 2011 and 57.5% in 2001. This decline is attributable to several factors, including the collapse in the birth rate and the aging of the population . The phenomenon is more marked in the Northern regions, where less than 4 out of 10 households are made up of couples with children. The one stands out Liguria which records the minimum value of 37.2%. While in the South the percentage remains above 50%, with peaks in Basilicata, Campania And Puglia (51.8%, 51.4% and 50.7% respectively). And fewer and fewer children are being had: half of couples have an only child and only one in 10 has three or more.
At the same time, single-parent families are growing, reaching 3.8 million (+44% compared to 2011). The vast majority, 77.6%, are single mothers. But in the decade 2011-2021 the boom mainly concerned fathers. They increased by 85%, compared to +35.5% for women.
The territorial gap in the family model is evident. In the North, couples without children prevail, who in Piedmont And Friuli-Venice Julia exceed 36% of households, while in the South families with children dominate, representing 50.5% of total households. Furthermore, cohabitation with adult children is more common in the southern regions, often caused by economic and employment difficulties that delay young people’s leaving their parents’ home.
The demographic change has made couples over sixty-five a significant share (27%) of the total. On the contrary, couples under 45 are decreasing, going from 27.3% to 19.2% in ten years. Same-sex couples are also increasing and, although they still represent less than 1% of families, they have grown numerically and are more concentrated in the North. Today there are around 10 thousand.
Single-person households could outnumber couples with children by 2040, according to projections. It would be an epochal turning point in the Italian social fabric.
