Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19

Jennifer Beam Dowd; Valentina Rotondi; Liliana Adriano; David M Brazel; Per Block; Xuejie Ding; Yan Liu; Melinda C Mills

As already suggested, Italy is a country characterized by extensive intergenerational contacts which are supported by a high degree of residential proximity between adult children and their parents. Although proximity is the highest in smaller villages and in poorer regions, the geography of proximity across Italy is rather homogeneous, with the two richest regions -Lombardy and Trentino-Alto Adige -showing high rates of proximity as well. Even when intergenerational families do not live under the same roof, daily contacts among non-co-resident parent-child pairs are frequent. While on the one hand, this geographical proximity guarantees high rates of mutual intergenerational solidarity, both financial and in-kind, one obvious consequence is that Italians often prefer not to move for work but to live close to their family and commute daily to go to work. According to the latest available data by the Italian National . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.