Although it has been suggested that Sardinian population experienced a matriarchal society which lasted until the industrialization of the fifties (Pitzalis-Acciaro 1978) such a concept has been lately criticized (Oppo 1990 Da Re 1990) as the absence of a full equality implies more a woman-centred society than a matriarchal one (Eller 2011). This is in contrast with the rest of Italy, where women appear to choose self-employment to avoid inactivity or unemployment rather than as a means of personal motivation or desire to improve their career (Rosti and Chelli 2005), and appears to be related with Sardinian distinct and peculiar division of roles in family which resulted in the emergence of both a relative gender equality, with strong and active female figures, and enhanced horizontal ties between female siblings, which affect and influence women attitudes towards family and work (Boi et al 1999 Bernardi and Oppo 2007). Female entrepreneurs, indeed, are emblematic: they are a growing component of Sardinian society and economy (though concentrated in the tertiary sector), and are generally more educated than their male counterpart in particular, they are not necessity entrepreneurs, as they prefer autonomous work primarily as a means of emancipation and freedom (Boi et al. As a consequence, women isolated from maternal kin are more likely to eschew the double presence model to welcome the first serious marriage prospect, thereby abandoning their educational pattern too early to have reasonable expectations of employment and devo There two ways in which such gendered strong ties are relevant: a) strong ties among kin-related women represent the principal resource for material and psychological support in daily and occasional circumstances b) strong ties among female maternal kin are the major vehicles for the socialization of young women and therefore have a great influence on their attitudes towards family and work. The extent to which care is gendered depends on the extent to which a young woman’s family configuration includes a substantial proportion of female maternal kin. Our findings show, among other aspects, that considerations of work and family are developed in accordance with expectations and responsibilities related to care and family. In addition, we use the field-notes produced by several months of ethnographic observation of social practices related to intergenerational relations, gender relations, and parental roles. The empirical data are 74 semi-structured interviews with women between ages 23-42 who were resident in Cagliari, the main urban center of Sardinia, Italy. While choices about childbearing rest with the couple, the background against which such choices are made is provided by the set of actual relationships in which the couple is embedded before they form a union, at the time in which they get engaged, and after, despite the residential independence of the new nuclear family. In this paper we argue that the strength of intergenerational relationships in Italy is one important element in understanding low fertility in this country, but that the role that family plays in a couple’s fertility decisions needs to be understood in light of the wider context of normative influences on life-course transitions.
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