Poverty in Italy : Features and Drivers in a European Perspective

Italy is one of the EU countries that was hardest hit by the 2008 financial crisis and is also slowest in recovering, even compared to other Mediterranean countries that share some of its societal features. Poverty has steadily increased throughout the period following 2008, and no clear indication of a trend reversal is yet visible. Working poor, the young, children and migrant foreign households are the main victims of the situation. Also the territorial divide has deepened, with the Southern regions bearing the brunt of the crisis much more, and for a longer time, than the Centre-North ones. According to the authors, the duration and depth of the crisis in Italy, and its impact on poverty, were largely a consequence of long-term structural features of the Italian economy, of its weak and fragmented social safety net, with its high expectations concerning family solidarity and the gender division of labour on the one hand, of its sluggish growth since the 1990s on the other. Governments’ austerity choices in reaction to the crisis (and under pressure from the EU) have further strengthened these features, although the recent introduction of a minimum income provision has marked an important change in the policy approach to poverty.