Conference Program

Italy represents a crucial case for the study of contemporary transitions to adulthood. Characterized by a “latest-late” pattern of leaving the parental home and family formation, and by persistently “lowest-low” fertility (Ongaro, 2001; Billari and Rosina, 2004), Italy stands as a demographic outlier in the European landscape. At the same time, the growing share of children of immigrants entering adulthood introduces new layers of heterogeneity into these already delayed transitions. Despite extensive research on immigrants’ descendants in countries with longer migration histories (Hannemann et al., 2020; Harrison et al., 2023; Kulu et al., 2024), evidence for Italy remains limited, making it a particularly relevant context to investigate how diverse pathways to adulthood take shape.

The relationship between education, union formation, and fertility is typically examined a posteriori as the outcome of interconnected events unfolding across the life course. In contrast, this paper adopts an a priori perspective by focusing on aspirations during adolescence, a life stage in which future trajectories are first articulated. Adolescents’ aspirations are formed at the intersection of individual preferences, family influences, and broader structural conditions, and as such they represent a key mechanism through which socioeconomic and gender inequalities become internalized, negotiated, and potentially reproduced across generations. We therefore examine how educational aspirations are associated with adolescents’ aspirations regarding partnership and parenthood.

The analysis integrates insights from opportunity cost theory, socialisation theory, and adaptation theory. Opportunity-cost theory (Plotnick, 2007) suggests that higher educational aspirations may increase the perceived cost of early union formation and parenthood, fostering postponement. Socialisation theory (Andersson, 2004; De Valk & Liefbroer, 2007) highlights how family background and cultural norms shape early preferences, potentially influencing both the desire for union formation and intended family size. Finally, adaptation theory (Milewski, 2007) provides a framework for understanding how descendants of immigrants may progressively align their behaviours with those prevalent in the host society.

Empirically, we draw on the 2023 nationally representative survey “Children and Adolescents: Behaviours, Attitudes, and Future Plans” conducted by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat). By collecting detailed information on young people aged 11-19 living in Italy, the survey offers a unique opportunity to examine emerging family formation patterns before actual transitions occur. To the best of our knowledge, research examining the ideational dimensions of the education-family formation relationship during adolescence remains scarce (see Alcaraz et al., 2022 for low- and middle-income countries; Plotnick, 2007 for the United States). Using logistic regression models, we analyse whether educational aspirations are associated with (a) the desire to form a union and (b) the desire to become a parent, comparing native and migrant-background adolescents – to shed the light on processes of socialisation and adaptation in a context characterized by delayed transitions and very low fertility.

By shifting the education-family formation nexus to the stage of adolescent aspiration formation, this study assesses whether perceived trade-offs between education and family life are already internalized before actual transitions occur. In doing so, it provides novel evidence on how imagined adulthoods are socially stratified in contemporary Italy.