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This article compares two national surveys carried out through the most commonly used procedures in Italy: CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviews) and SAQ-FI (self-answered questionnaires following interviews). Both surveys ask two identical questions concerning sensitive sexual behavior: early age at first intercourse and same-sex attraction. The SAQ-FI survey had both unit non-response and item non-response rates much lower than the CATI survey. Moreover, in the CATI survey, the groups with highest item non-response rates were also the groups with the lowest proportions of early intercourse and homosexual attraction. In addition, a differential analysis of the respondents produced diverse results for the two surveys. This is especially true of results by gender for same-sex attraction: Such behavior is more common among men (3.1%) than women (2.9%), according to the CATI survey, whereas the opposite is true of the SAQ-FI survey (6.1% of men vs. 7.7% women). In Italy at the beginning of the 21st century, CATI surveys reveal a lower level of early intercourse and same-sex attraction than SAQ-FI surveys. This article argues that the CATI survey underestimates the true level of these sensitive sexual behaviors in the Italian population.

This article employs novel documentation to examine ways in which the Church's moral rules on contraception were (or were not) communicated to parishioners in a predominantly Catholic context in a period of rapid fertility decline: the diocese of Padua, in the northeastern Italian region of Veneto, during the first half of the twentieth century. The account is based on documents that have until now been overlooked: the moral cases discussed during the periodic meetings among Padua priests in the years 1916–58, and the written answers provided by priests in response to a question asked of them concerning their efforts to combat the limiting of births. This documentation reveals the limited effect on the reproductive behavior of the position of the Catholic Church against birth control.

"This article is a contribution to the discussion on theories about household formation and marriage in Italy in the 1880s. Based on data [from] the 1881 census, it aims at verifying some hypotheses on the interdependence between marriage behaviour and socio-economic and environmental factors, by using some multivariate statistical techniques. The authors propose a number of indicators and analyse their correlation matrix, before reducing the variables to a few relevant factors which summarize a major part of the available information. Such factors are employed to determine homogeneous areas for marriage behaviour. Finally, they propose and measure some causal relationships between variables within two of the previously identified areas." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND FRE), (excerpt)

"The aim of this paper is to study [sex,] age and cause differential mortality in the 95 Italian provinces during the last twenty years...." Tabular data on causes of death are presented and compared for regions in Italy and between Italy and the international community. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA), (excerpt)