Istat: Italy’s well-being improves, but not the environment and safety. Poverty is not decreasing

The risk of poverty is not reduced (20.1% of the population)

In 2021, the average family income (33,798 euros) began to grow again both in nominal terms (+3%) and in real terms (+1%). The net income inequality index also improved, recording a value of 5.6, decreasing compared to the previous year (it was 5.9 in 2020) and with values ​​slightly lower than the pre-pandemic ones (it was equal to 5 .7 in 2019): in the absence of family support measures (emergency transfers and citizenship income), the inequality index would have been equal to 6.4, a value much higher than that observed.

The population at risk of poverty remains substantially stable compared to the previous three years, equal to 20.1% in 2022. Absolute poverty from 2019 to 2023 (historical series reconstructed according to the new estimation methodology) presents a growth in individual incidence. In 2019 it had fallen to 7.6% coinciding with the introduction of Citizenship Income, a monetary transfer not indexed to inflation like other social welfare benefits. In 2020, the incidence started to grow again, reaching 9.1%. and remaining stable in 2021. In 2022, the incidence increases again to 9.7%, largely due to the strong acceleration in inflation which has particularly affected less well-off families and remains substantially stable with 9.8 % in 2023.

Waiving treatment due to financial problems or waiting lists

In 2023, approximately 4.5 million citizens have had to give up medical visits or diagnostic tests due to economic problems, waiting lists or access difficulties, 7.6% of the population (increasing compared to 7.0% in 2022 and 6.3% in 2019), probably due to recovery of healthcare benefits deferred for COVID-19 and difficulty in effectively reorganizing healthcare). There is a doubling of the share of those who gave up due to waiting list problems (from 2.8% in 2019 to 4.5% in 2023), while the number of people who gave up for economic reasons remained stable (from 4.3% in 2019 to 4 .2% in 2023), but still increasing compared to 2022: +1.3 percentage points in just one year. In 2023, life expectancy is equal to 83.1 years and is increasing compared to 2022 (82.3), almost completely recovering the 2019 level (83.2 years). Men with 81.1 years of expected average life return to the same level as in 2019, while for women (85.2 years) there is still 0.2 years to go (85.4 in 2019). Healthy life expectancy in 2023 is equal to 59.2 years and is reduced compared to 60.1 years in 2022. This reduction has brought the indicator back almost to the 2019 level (58.6 years), reducing the anomalous increase occurred between 2020 and 2022 due to the subjective component, as a result of the more widespread perception of good health conditions in times of pandemic.

Work, non-participation is close to 15%

Very large gaps concern the measures of the Work and life balance domain: in Italy in 2023 the rate of non-participation in work (14.8%) exceeds the EU27 average by almost six percentage points (8.7%); the employment rate is 9.1 percentage points lower than the European average (75.4%) and the percentage of people working involuntarily part time (10.2% in 2022), despite having been decreasing for four years, is almost three times the average of the 27 countries of the Union (3.6%).

All education and training measures place Italy lower than the EU27 average. The greatest distances concern the share of people aged 25-34 who have acquired a tertiary level of education (43.1% in the EU27%; 30.6% in Italy) and the greater incidence of young people who do not work or study : the latter, also defined as NEET, have however fallen significantly in the last period to 16.1% compared to 19%, even if they remain above the EU average of 11.2%,