The Importance of the Family as an Institution: Findings from an Italian Survey

Abstract

Institutions are the focal points of social organizations that are common to all societies; they address the basic problems of an ordered social life, to which the differentiation of the major institutional spheres or activities corresponds: family and kinship, education, economy, politics, cultural institutions, and social stratification. The concept of institution, a main issue in the social sciences, has been developed in a number of anthropological, economic, juridical, political, and sociological institutional theories (Bumpass 1990).