Famiglie numerose e famiglie atipiche in Italia al censimento del 2001.

By the data of the 2001census of the Italian population we consider the characteristics of the households of at least two people which are not a family unit, the large households of at least six persons and those with some foreign members. These three groups of households are at the margins of the prevailing type consisting of a couple with or without children and therefore, we define them “atypical”. Because of the small size of these groups, they can hardly analysed with data from sample surveys The households of two persons which are not a family are 477 thousand. The most important are those consisting of brothers / sisters (or brothers in law/ sisters in law), followed by those of a parent and a son separated or divorced, then by those consisting of other relatives (mostly grandfather / grandchild or uncle / nephew) and finally those of individuals linked by a bond of affection. The latter are 56 thousands, 38% with people of different sex and the rest with same sex people, half consisting of men only and half of women only. The large households are 370 thousand. They constitute an aggregate heterogeneous with respect to their structure, including also the households without a family, couples without children and other members added and households with many families. They are a different set from that formed by the families with numerous children (for symmetry with at least four children). This one includes 210 thousand families, of which 185 thousand are couples with children and 25 thousand single parents with children.