Conference Agenda

This study explores what constitutes an ideal family in Italy and Spain, questioning the prevailing view that they are homogenous traditional family-oriented countries. Specifically, it investigates whether traditional family ideals persist (i); whether family ideals have evolved in parallel in Italy and Spain or diverged (ii); and whether there are differences across gender and education (iii). To capture the multidimensional nature of family ideals, we employed a factorial survey experiment (FSE) in which respondents evaluated a set of family scenarios. This approach enables an assessment of the relative importance of the factors shaping individuals’ perceptions of the ideal family. The findings reveal significant modernization of family ideals in both countries, where good communication and gender equality play a key role in positive family evaluations. However, cross-country comparisons reveal a greater prevalence of postmodern family ideals in Spain than in Italy, with a few, but notable differences across gender and education.

In recent decades, Italy has seen a gradual increase in the use of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in family formation. However, compared to other countries, Italy’s ART regulations remain restrictive. Only heterosexual couples are eligible for treatment, while same-sex couples and singles cannot access ART. Furthermore, social egg freezing is not permitted. Whether these restrictive practices align with Italians' attitudes toward ART is uncertain, as there is limited data on public opinion regarding these technologies. Additionally, little is known about individual factors that shape views on ART. This study seeks to expand knowledge on these topics by investigating men’s and women’s attitudes toward ART procedures, funding schemes, and practices—some of which are currently prohibited in Italy—using a nationally representative sample. Preliminary analyses reveal two key findings. First, ART is more favorably viewed when it supports traditional family structures, such as enabling infertile heterosexual couples to have biologically related children. However, attitudes become more polarized when ART supports family formation for singles or same-sex couples. Second, there is considerable support for social egg freezing, which aligns with a preference for ART methods preserving genetic relatedness and suggest a potential gap between public opinion and existing Italian regulations.

The study of within-family cultural transfers has been a central focus in sociological literature since the discipline's inception. Empirical evidence demonstrates how family members influence each other's attitudes from a life-course perspective. However, a unifying concept of family culture has never been fully proposed. In this work, I aim to descriptively investigate the patterns of family culture across individuals' life courses, compute distinct family cultural profiles based on patterns of similarity and dissimilarity with family members across multiple attitudes (i.e., about vaccination, climate change, same-sex couple adoption rights, immigration), and assess which socio-demographic characteristics at the individual and family levels are associated with belonging to different family cultural clusters. To achieve this, I will use newly collected, nationally representative cross-country data gathered between March and July 2024 among individuals aged 18 and older in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Spain, France, and the UK. I will leverage graphical analysis, cluster analysis, and machine learning techniques to address my research questions and assess the robustness of my findings using long-running social science surveys (i.e., ESS, UKHLS, G-SOEP). Understanding the characteristics of family culture could shed light on individuals' linked life-course trajectories and offer insights into the mechanisms driving social change.

This study contributes to the literature on the heterogeneous impacts of climate change on health by examining how macro-level dynamics influence individual vulnerabilities to climate shocks. Specifically, we investigate the impact of postnatal sex selection on child wasting following drought shocks in Bangladesh, a country characterized by absence of pre-natal sex selection but by varying degrees of son preference and by very frequent droughts, affecting the agro-based economy and people's livelihood almost every year. We combine child-level data from the DHS with fine-grained data on drought. Our analysis examines (1) whether droughts impact children’s nutritional status, (2) whether this impact is larger for female children, and (3) whether this association depends on the level of son preference on the community. Preliminary findings suggest a higher likelihood of wasting in drier regions, and that female children experience significantly larger nutritional deficits compared to male children. Importantly, we also find that this gender gap in the impact of droughts on undernutrition increases at increasingly higher levels of son-preference. These results underscore the role of gendered social norms in exacerbating the vulnerability of female children to environmental shocks.

Early socialization may be an important explanation for the gendered division of housework among adults. The aim of this research is to analyse the intra-family transmission of gendered roles. It measures the children's participation to housework, at the age of around 10, in relation with the division of housework and paid work among their parents during their childhood.

Using the large French birth cohort ELFE, we analyse the domestic participation to basic tasks (setting and clearing the table; tidying up own's room; helping with cooking; helping with cleaning; putting out the bin; taking care of pets) of 7,361 children aged 10.5 old in 2022.

With the exception of putting out the bin, girls report a higher participation than boys, whether or not household characteristics are controlled for. Regression results on each task done or the number of tasks performed by the child show that the gendered participation is little sensitive to the parental model, once socio-demographic characteristics are taken into account.