Profound changes have occurred in the demography and sociology of
Italian fertility since Napoleonic times. Using the statistical system
instituted in 1861 with national unification, Massimo Livi-Bacci
provides a systematic and detailed analysis of fertility trends in Italy
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He brings to light the main
features of the secular decline: its rapid occurrence in the northern
and central areas; the widening urban-rural gap; the shaping of social
and economic differences; and the late, slow downward trend in the
South.
Multivariate statistical analysis enables the author to measure the
changing relationship between fertility and social or economic
phenomena. Historical evidence illustrates the effect on fertility of
mass emigration and Fascist policy as well as of social changes such as
those in agrarian structure, mobility, and communications.
An altered attitude toward procreation is evident in some parts of Italy
in the early nineteenth century. The decline becomes apparent in certain
northern and central regions in the 1870s and 1880s and it appears at
the aggregate national level in the 1890s.
Originally published in 1977.
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