Spousal bereavement is one of the most disruptive life events, strongly associated with elevated mortality risk – a phenomenon known as the “bereavement effect”. Despite extensive international evidence, this effect remains underexplored in Italy, a rapidly ageing society with over 4.4 million widowed individuals. This study investigates how the mortality impact of widowhood varies by gender and socioeconomic status (SES), with a focus on the role of caregiving for a disabled spouse. Using Italian register data from INPS (2014–2022) on nearly 9.4 million old-age pensioners, we apply logistic regression to estimate short- and long-term mortality risk differences between married and widowed individuals. We examine how this risk varies by gender, SES, whether the deceased spouse had a disability, and the interplay of these factors. Our findings confirm a heightened mortality risk following bereavement, particularly among men, younger individuals, mid-to-high SES groups, and in the first year after loss. Uniquely, low SES women experience a delayed bereavement effect – higher in the long term than in the short term, suggesting temporary relief from caregiving burdens. For this group only, in fact, bereavement after caring for a disabled spouse initially reduces mortality risk before it increases again over time. These results highlight the importance of addressing gendered and socioeconomic disparities in bereavement outcomes. Policies should consider the health consequences of spousal loss and caregiving, particularly for vulnerable populations, as part of broader ageing and welfare strategies.

Analysis of fertility intentions and their realizations is essential to understand reproductive behavior in countries with widespread access to effective birth control. Specifically, what economic, social, or cultural factors lead couples to have more or fewer children than they initially planned? We address this question within the Italian Institute of Statistics Thematic Laboratory by constructing a longitudinal register using record linkage techniques between the 2016 Families, Households, and Life Cycle Survey (FSS16) and the 2023 Base Register on Individuals (RBI2023). Within the Italian Institute of Statistics Thematic Laboratory, we tackle this question by constructing a longitudinal register through record linkage techniques between the 2016 Families, Households, and Life Cycle Survey (FSS16) and the 2023 Base Register on Individuals (RBI2023). Using pseudonymized keys, we linked these sources to examine fertility trends among 5,587 women aged 18-49 in 2016, tracking births post-2016 to observe fertility changes within families over time. This longitudinal approach allows us to gain insights into evolving family and fertility dynamics. The findings reveal notable delays in childbearing and outcomes that fall well below initial respondents’ expectations. These results underscore substantial barriers to family formation and reproductive behavior in Italy.

While previous research has established the significance of individual work and family histories for later-life health, we extend this by examining how a partner’s work-family trajectory contributes to health outcomes. Drawing on role theory and gendered stress transmission models, we use retrospective life history data from SHARE, focusing on individuals aged 50 and older in 28 European countries. Multichannel sequence analysis identifies typical work-family trajectory clusters from ages 15 to 50, and respondents are matched with their partners to run dyadic analyses. Gender-stratified regression models assess the interactive effects of both partners’ trajectories on self-rated health, controlling for early-life conditions, education, and country fixed effects. Preliminary findings from Italy show that men’s health is primarily influenced by their own work-family biography, whereas women’s health is significantly shaped by both their own and their partner’s biographies. Women partnered with stable full-time or self-employed men exhibit better health, while unpartnered women report the poorest outcomes. These results highlight the importance of considering couple-level life course interdependencies.

This study adopts a dyadic approach to examine whether higher-income women experience lower fertility due to opportunity costs and conventional gender norms or whether resource pooling within couples facilitates parenthood. We test the well-established gendered relationship between income and fertility in Italy, a country historically known for its division of family roles along traditional gender lines. Utilising longitudinal tax data (2003–2021; n=5,384,425 person-years) from Tuscany—an Italian region representing average levels of economic development and gender equality in Europe—we apply discrete-time event-history analyses. Results show that higher earnings for both men and women increase the likelihood of first birth, with couples in which both partners are high earners being the most likely to have children and low-income couples the least likely. These findings challenge traditional sex-specialisation models and support the view that couples’ income pooling is a key factor for parenthood. While the positive income-fertility association remained stable for married couples, it grew stronger among single/cohabitors in the late 2010s, suggesting a link between rising economic barriers to parenthood and income inequality in fertility.

Contemporary families increasingly experience significant life transitions. Becoming a single parent is among the most impactful. This shift often profoundly affects subjective well-being, economic conditions, and social connections. Using longitudinal microdata from the Italian EU-SILC (2005–2023), this study explores the implications of transitioning into single parenthood on individual well-being.

By reconstructing household compositions, we identify the precise timing of individuals' shifts into single-parent status and track their well-being trajectories before and after the event. Leveraging the panel data structure, we apply multiple causal inference methods—including fixed-effects, matching, and difference-in-differences—to robustly estimate the impact of this transition.

Preliminary findings suggest that moving into single parenthood typically reduces subjective well-being, particularly when dependent children are involved. However, the observed effects show notable variability, influenced by socioeconomic resources, gender, and age.

This study builds on a growing literature examining family transitions' consequences for adult well-being. Prior research highlights declining life satisfaction preceding divorce with partial recovery afterward (van Scheppingen & Leopold, 2020), differential effects on adults and children (Kalmijn & Leopold, 2021), and temporary economic impacts of separation (Leopold & Kalmijn, 2024). Extending these insights to Southern Europe, where institutional support for single parents is limited, our research emphasizes the importance of timing and context.

By focusing on transitions rather than statuses, this project identifies critical periods of vulnerability, offering insights to inform policy interventions aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of contemporary family dynamics.

While delayed parenthood and medical advancements have increased ART utilization across Europe, existing studies largely treat infertility as a medical issue, overlooking its socially constructed nature. This gap is particularly problematic in light of the growing societal and political debates around ART, which resemble other polarised, partisan issues. This paper addresses this gap by investigating attitudes toward ART, with a focus on Italy—a country traditionally known for conservative family norms, yet where ART use has become more widespread in recent years. We employ a factorial survey experiment (FSE) in which respondents evaluate vignettes describing fictitious couples facing infertility, and express judgments they ascribe to those couples regarding whether they should pursue ART. The vignettes systematically vary characteristics such as age, parity, duration of attempts to conceive, treatment costs, type of recommended intervention, and proximity to fertility centres. Applying multilevel logistic models predicting positive /negative polarised views and OLS random-effect regression models, our findings indicate that certain characteristics of the fictitious couples, such as having tried to conceive for over a year and advanced maternal age, tend to positively influence support for ART. In contrast, heterologous treatments, going abroad, and parenthood are generally associated with more negative attitudes. While respondents’ own socio-demographic traits are weakly associated with their ascribed views on ART, cultural orientations appear to play a more significant role. In conclusion, our findings suggest that attitudes towards ART are not static, but rather context-dependent and sensitive to the specific couple’s situation. In particular, the personal characteristics of the fictitious couples, particularly the woman’s age, parity, and the length of time spent trying to conceive, emerge as the most significant factors influencing attitudes toward ART, and their polarization. This study lays a crucial foundation for future research on ART in contemporary ageing societies.