ABSTRACT Childlessness has been increasing over the last decades in most European societies. Previous studies have mostly focused on the ‘involuntary’ component of childlessness, and factors affecting voluntary childlessness remained poorly understood. This article presents an analysis of the factors associated with the intention to be childless, and the realisation and stability of this intention in the short-term. The theory of planned behaviour is applied to relate childlessness intentions with their realisation and to explore the role of ideational factors on the variability of possible fertility outcomes. Results show that more than 90% of the respondents realised their desire to remain childless. Childlessness intentions, however, tend to be less stable than parenthood ones, at all ages with the exception of individuals aged 40 years or more. Individuals’ attitudes towards childbearing and perceived social pressure toward parenthood strongly correlate with the stability of the intentions toward childlessness or parenthood, whereas socio-economic characteristics and factors connected with individuals’ perceived control count for little. The study sheds light on people who voluntarily live without children and suggests that being childless is not always the result of opportunities and external constraints, but it could be a choice originating from personal and intimate domains of life.

ABSTRACT Previous studies on divorce have found consistent empirical evidence that a negative association exists between marital disruption and children's wellbeing, life chances and intergenerational relations. However, there are relatively few studies on the long-term effect of divorce on parent–child contacts. Furthermore, contemporary research is confronted with two declining effect hypotheses. Firstly, it has been argued that the negative effects of divorce may possibly decrease as children's age at time of divorce increases; secondly, it has been suggested that the consequences of divorce might be less severe the more frequent marriage dissolution is in a society. By using data from Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and France from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we analyze the existing relation between parents’ divorce and the intensity of parent–child contacts. Furthermore, we provide some empirical evidence on the two declining effect hypotheses. Our findings show that divorce has long-term negative effects on the intensity of intergenerational relations. The results do not provide any evidence in favor of either the individual or the collective declining effect hypothesis.

ABSTRACT Previous research has found parental divorce to have negative effects on children's educational attainment; in addition, it has been noted that the effects of divorce are not the same in all western societies. However, research on Catholic and southern European countries is missing. The aim of this paper is to add to the research on the relation between parental divorce and the educational attainment of children in catholic and southern European societies. Italian society differs from other western societies with respect to many characteristics of its family structure, its cultural and religious systems, its social welfare system, and also with respect to the legislation, frequency and characteristics of divorce. Based on data of the Bank of Italy Survey of Households’ Income and Wealth, we find that the educational level of the children with divorced parents is lower than the educational level of children with married parents. The analysis indicates that the education of children born to the least educated divorced mothers lags significantly behind children of the least educated married mothers, while the educational level of children of highly educated mothers does not deviate from that of children of highly educated mothers who remain married. Next, contrary to what has been found in other European societies, this research shows that widowhood has a significant negative effect on children's educational attainment as well. Finally, the study also demonstrates that the negative effect of divorce cannot be explained by the negative impact of the religious climate of the region of residence.