Gender differences in couples’ civil union property regime

Abstract

Property regime is a key indicator to investigate intra-household inequality in wealth. In Italy, the community of property is for the default property regime. However during the years a growing diffusion and prevalence of the separation regime has been observed. Various explanations have been developed for marriages focusing on couples’ asymmetry. Little is known about same-sex couples where separation of property is the most popular property regime too. Using data from the total Survey on Labour Discrimination against LGBT+ people (in civil union or formerly in union), carried out by Istat and Unar in 2020-2021, the main aim of this study is to investigate if there are gender differences in the property regime option between women and men couples in civil union in Italy and explore the main associated factors for choosing one type of property regime or the other.