A change of direction for family policy in Italy: some reflections on the general family allowance (GFA)

Genus

Journal of Population Sciences

Table 4 Couple status of woman and fertility of women in a co-residing heterosexual couple in Italy during 2012–20, by year and age*

	Age 18–34		Age 35–49
	% In a couple	Fertility of women in a couple**	% In a couple	Fertility of women in a couple**
2012	36.7	0.205	76.1	0.049
2013	35.6	0.212	75.2	0.047
2014	34.2	0.199	75.1	0.045
2015	33.2	0.195	74.9	0.049
2016	33.1	0.207	74.8	0.048
2017	32.6	0.196	75.0	0.048
2018	32.6	0.210	74.9	0.051
2019	32.0	0.198	74.8	0.051
2020	31.3	0.205	75.0	0.047

*For about 1.2% of women a year it was not possible to define whether or not they were in a co-residing couple
**Proportion of women who had a child in the year of the interview or in the previous one
In the Italian Labor Survey data base, the two co-resident partners and the dyadic mother/child are identified by crossing the kinship relation code with the head of the household. The combined proportion of children for whom it was not possible to identify a co-resident mother and the proportion of women for whom it was not possible to understand whether or not they were living in a couple relationship make up less than 2% of the observations. The survey data show that the share of births to single mothers over the 2012–20 period in Italy remained constant at around 7% (roughly the same as in official data) and the probability of having a child was ten times higher for women in a co-resident couple than for women who did not live with a partner
Source: Italian Labor Survey, years 2012–2020