Social contagion of the "delay syndrome" in Italy

Alessandro Rosina, Università Cattolica, Milan
Paola Di Giulio, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Large attention has been devoted in the last years to the postponement of the transition to adulthood, and especially of leaving the parental home, in Southern Europe. This phenomenon, labeled “delay syndrome” by Livi Bacci (2001), reached in Italy unprecedented values, stimulating research for a deeper understanding. In this paper we want to study the diffusion of the “delay syndrome” and the possible presence of a “social contagion” effect. In particular we will investigate in what ways the decision (not) to leave the parental home is influenced by the presence of a growing part of the young population who postpone the events of the transition to adulthood. We use data from the Italian Multipurpose Survey 1998; the method used is a revised version of the event history diffusion model proposed by Nazio and Blossfeld (2003).