Riduzione delle nascite e invecchiamento della popolazione. Sociologia del diritto di famiglia (seconda parte)

Abstract

 [Declining Birth Rates and Population Aging. Sociology of Family Law (Second Part)] The present work is the second of three contributions dedicated to the study of socio-demographic behavior. The author has written this text with the intention of providing students of Sociology of Law with background materials useful for the study of the Sociology of family law.  The first part deals with “The Formation of families”, and the third, due to appear in 2015, with “Family instability, separation and divorce”. The analysis of the evolution of fertility over half a century in the major Western European countries is the starting point of this text. A real scarcity of children and young people is appearing since the 1970s or 1980s in most countries, with only a few of them (Sweden France, UK, Ireland) showing fertility near, but not over, the replacement rate (a little over 2 children per woman). Population aging is an inevitable consequence of this negative trend, which shows no sign of change, notwithstanding massive immigration from high birth-rate countries and a slight increase of older women births. Family structures have also been deeply affected by the change. Finally, the social and economic consequences of the stabilization of very low birth rates are briefly examined.