The Same-Sex Civil Unions in Italy

Maura Simone , Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
Antonella Guarneri, Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)

In May 2016, the Italian parliament approved the Law introducing the civil unions between people of the same-sex. The Law establishes: • two people of the same-sex, aged 18 years and over, can celebrate a civil union; • through the same-sex civil union, people change marital status; • same-sex couples who had married abroad before that the law were issued can register civil union in Italy without a new celebration. In Italy, the celebration of the same-sex civil unions has begun in July 2016 after the enactment of the Implementing Regulation. Since the edition 2016, the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) has introduced in the survey on Registered Civil Status Events the section relating to the constitution of same-sex civil unions celebrated in the Italian municipalities (about 7,900), by gender of the partners (both males, both females). In Italy, from July 2016 to December 2017, 6,712 same-sex civil unions have been constituted. However, over the years 2016-2017, the aggregated data collected by ISTAT at municipality level did not allow having detailed information on the socio-demographic characteristics of the people who celebrated (or registered) a same-sex civil. Therefore, an attempt has been made to estimate these characteristics through the analysis of Municipal Registry Data at January 1st 2017 and at January 1st 2018. Moreover, the availability of more recent official data will allow investigating further characteristics both of the same-sex civil unions constituted in Italy and of the partners.

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 Presented in Session P1. Poster Session Fertility, Family and the Life Course