The Study
Italian Lives (ITA.LI) is a longitudinal quantitative and qualitative research project carried out by the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Milan-Bicocca, within the scope of the Departments of Excellence project (Italian Law 232 of 11 December 2016). The project involves the members aged over 16 of approximately 5,000 families selected from more than 250 Italian municipalities using an innovative probabilistic sampling method in three stages developed in conjunction with the Italian National Institute of Statistics ISTAT. Its aim is to build a constantly updated dynamic database on social change in Italy offering high-quality data to researchers working in several disciplinary fields. The stored data is harmonised with those from leading research carried out internationally, in order to make them available to a vast audience of experts interested in cross-national comparative research.
The quantitative study began in 2019, and comprises several waves of surveys carried out at regular intervals. The focus is on intergenerational social change, and it involves the broad-based collection of retrospective information about the members of the families involved. The lives of all the participants aged 16 and above are reconstructed, from birth to the date of the interview. The data collected looks at their geographic or residential mobility, education, career, marriage or cohabitation, and the birth or adoption of children. The diachronic study of these specific areas of daily life facilitates the in-depth analysis of important topics such as migratory phenomena and their evolution, educational paths, changes in employment structure, mobility flows over time and changes in forms of family cohabitation and marriage rates. These are key issues, which can be studied together in aggregate or individual form. Furthermore, every interview collects additional information about the perceptions and habits of the subjects and families involved about general topics of strategic interest, such as health, quality of life, resources, debts and family support, internet access and political participation. Studying families and individuals over time creates the necessary foundations for analysing social change from a causal interpretation perspective.
Project Manager: Mario Lucchini.
Research Team: Gianluca Argentin, Federico Denti, Giovanna De Santis, Vito Di Santo, Tiziano Gerosa, Carlotta Piazzoni, Maurizio Pisati, Chiara Respi, Egidio Riva, Emanuela Maria Sala, Domingo Scisci, Marco Terraneo.
The qualitative study aims to collect new data for analysing the everyday experiences of young people. This includes their work experiences, friendships and intimate relationships, family and intergenerational relationships, housing issues, the way they use their free time, and more in general, agency strategies. The lives of young Italian women and men are increasingly less linear and more fragmented. The stages along the road towards adulthood are no longer necessarily sequential. This sometimes challenges the very nature of youth as a social stage of preparation for adult life. As a consequence, life experiences in the here and now tend to count more than medium- and long-term projects. Inequalities in the available resources and opportunities are becoming increasingly important, also these inequalities intersect the many differences of young people’s worlds. The survey involves a group of men and women aged between 23 and 29, with different experiences of education, university, work and family life and it is carried out in several waves of interviews held at regular intervals. The participants are extracted from the quantitative survey sample using criteria developed on an ad hoc basis by the research group, and are selected for interview on a voluntary basis. In parallel with this activity, three series of dialogical workshops are being carried out with groups of students in three universities in Northern, Central and Southern Italy exploring young people’s experiences in the last year of their three-year degree courses in both humanities/social subjects and scientific subjects.
Project Manager: Carmen Leccardi.
Research Team: Ilenya Camozzi, Maria Grazia Gambardella, Barbara Grüning, Sveva Maria Magaraggia, Susi Anny Veloso Resende, Arianna Rubi Mainardi, Stefania Voli.