Paper short abstract:

The paper questions the capacity of Italian welfare system, based in subsidiarity between the state and the kinship metwork, to deal with important demographic changes and crisis like new trends of family formation and new dynamics of internal migration.

Paper long abstract:

The paper presents the results of an in depth historical, ethnographic and statistical analysis of specific localities of Central Italy, with deeply-rooted tradition of poly-nuclear kinship organization and, after the nuclearization process, substituted with a strong residential proximity among relatives. At the moment, the Italian welfare-state model based on subsidiarity is potentially "under attack": I am referring to the effects of the second demographic transition on the reduced size of family groups, and on the genealogical inversion of the kin group. The first question the paper intends to tackle concerns the actual capacity of kinship (and of the local cultures of kinship linked to it), to secure in practical and representational forms the demand of care coming from the "vulnerables" (i.e. non sufficient elderly and children). The paper investigate the consequences on kinship networks brought about by big changes such as the growth of rates of divorce and non-married couples. Another demographic process at work in Italy over the two last decades is the renovation of fluxes of internal migration from the South to the Central and Northern regions. The hypothesis is that the families involved in this new migration - like the families that are experiencing new forms of family formation - come to terms with the weakness of the kinship-based model of welfare state. The question is if this trend is causing disrupting effects in social and moral terms, due to the sentiments of moral obligation linked to the care of the vulnerables in one's own kinship network.