Two Strong Families in Southern Europe? Re-Examining the Geography of Kinship Regimes Stemming from the Reciprocity Mechanisms Between Generations

Deux types de familles fortes en europe méridionale? le réexamen de la géographie des systèmes de parenté issus des mecanismes de réciprocité entre générations

Giuseppe A. Micheli ()
Additional contact information
Giuseppe A. Micheli: Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale

European Journal of Population, 2012, vol. 28, issue 1, No 2, 17-38

Abstract: Abstract David Reher’s hypothesis of a specific pattern of “strong family” characterizing the south of Europe is currently widely shared. Is a further specification possible, one that applies uniquely to the Mediterranean family? The supporting evidence from a large corpus of in-depth interviews of young people aged 30–34 and living in the north and south of Italy seems to confirm the existence of a dual identity for the strong family, located in two distinct belts within southern Europe divided along a north–south gradient. Pointers to the historical and anthropological roots of this cleavage between the two southern family patterns are sought in two major texts, Ibn Kaldun’s Mouqaddima and Mauss’ “Essay on the Gift.”

Keywords: Family patterns; Kinship regimes; Reciprocity mechanisms; Generations; Southern Europe; Modèles familiaux; Systèmes de parenté; Mécanismes de réciprocité; Générations; Europe du sud (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10680-011-9245-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eurpop:v:28:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1007_s10680-011-9245-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10680

DOI: 10.1007/s10680-011-9245-y

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Population is currently edited by Helga A.G. de Valk

More articles in European Journal of Population from Springer, European Association for Population Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().