All the (economic) consequences of the demographic glaciation in Italy
What emerges from the working paper “ Italy in the demographic glaciation '' edited by the Ezio Tarantelli Foundation. Giuliano Cazzola's horticulture
The Ezio Tarantelli Foundation has published a working paper entitled “ Italy in the demographic glaciation '' in which – with a series of articles that provide a complete picture – the combined effects of denatality and aging on public policies are addressed, social and pension and health services in particular.
Overall, it is a very useful in-depth study in times such as the present ones in which the large collective subjects, starting from the trade unions (including the CISL, the organization promoting the Foundation and therefore the study) address very delicate issues – such as the issue of pensions – with the head into the sack of an ideology that has now collapsed into opportunism, without taking care of the big problems that represent the treadmill on which the measures to be taken in the field of public finance and welfare walk.
In the editorial, the president of the Giuseppe Gallo Foundation basically summarizes the whole debate in a synthesis in which the various authors are cited in a sequence of continuity like the themes they address in their writings. The birth rate curve in Italy (Alessandro Rosina) suffered a sudden and accentuated collapse in the 1980s. At the end of that decade, Italy was the country with the lowest fertility in the world. The trend continued: the number of births settled around 500,000 per year in the 1990s (from over a million per year in the mid-1960s). In 2020 the lowest level (404,000) since the unification of Italy was reached, with a fertility rate of 1.24 children per woman.
The pandemic effect in 2021 will exacerbate the trend. The dual nature of the phenomenon is then underlined (Simona Costagli): the demographic fall is, in fact, associated with the increase in the number of elderly people in relation to the other age cohorts. Covid-19 reduced life expectancy at birth in Italy, from 83.2 years in 2019 to 82.0 in 2020 (79.7 years for men, -1.4 years on 2019; 84.4 years for women, -1 year on 2019), but the long-term trend does not change. In 1950, in fact, life expectancy was 66.5 years and the over 65s were 8.1% of the total population; in 2020 they were 23.5%; in 2049 the estimate rises to 33.9% of the Italian population. Symmetrically, in 1950 young people between zero and 14 were 26.7% of the total population; in 2020 they dropped to 11.8%.
In January 2021, there were 17,935 people over 100 in Italy, a world record shared with France. What, then, are the factors that determine and govern the current trend towards denatality and aging and the strategies to which they implicitly refer?
The response of Massimo Calvi and Francesco Riccardi is clear: "The main engine of the reduction of fertility is the development that leads to an increase in the cost / opportunity ratio of children, but above all it changes the perspective of women, making them (rightly) free to study and to establish itself on the labor market. But development also rhymes with urbanization ”, already a majority since 2009 and destined to welcome 70% of the world population in cities in 2050.
Metropolitan lifestyles, mixing basic critical elements such as a more stressful life in more polluted contexts, together with social ingredients such as consumerism and individualism, have proven to be able to transform the very structure of the family, outlining a scenario in which the child becomes one of the many possible options for personal fulfillment, one of many products of the "supermarket of opportunities", even an optional, if not a luxury ".
The share of people living alone in Italy (33.3%) has in fact exceeded the number of couples with children (33%). In Milan, 50% of families are single-membered, mostly elderly people alone, who were isolated during the lockdown. In Italy in 2020 there were 4.8 million singles (+ 52% compared to 2003); parents alone 1.5 million (fathers + 107%, mothers + 59.7% compared to 2003); free unions 1.2 million (+ 108% compared to 2003); -3.2% married couples and -7.9% married couples with children compared to 2003. Eloquent indicators of the profound change in the conception of social and emotional ties and responsibilities (Andrea Cuccello).
The unresolved knots at the origin of the phenomenon reside in the age, via, major stage of generation of the first child, consequent to the great difficulties of young people to gain autonomy from the family; organizational obstacles in the reconciliation of family life-work after the birth of the first child that inhibit the potential birth of subsequent children; the high risk of poverty, especially beyond the second child (Alessandro Rosina).
An articulation of the development model that discourages the formation of families and the propensity to generate is represented by the structure of the labor market and the low employment rate of women. The relationship between female employment and the fertility rate has opposite signs depending on the intervention or the inaction of maternity support policies, conciliation policies, maternity and paternity leave, childcare services.
In fact, in the southern provinces of our country, the increase in female employment rates is associated with a lower average number of children per woman. Working and having children, in the absence or insufficiency of dedicated support and services, becomes difficult and reckless conciliation to the point of discouraging it in advance.
In the Center and North, the relationship is inverse: in the provinces with a higher average female employment rate, the average fertility rate is also higher. The relationship is also confirmed in numerous OECD countries (Simona Costagli).
A particular analysis (Linda Laura Sabbadini) claims the need to create a favorable context for maternity and paternity, while in Italy, on the contrary, "everything goes against": rigid work organization, rigid family roles, policies to support family and residual childcare services. The investment in assistance to the elderly and disabled is equal to ¼ of the resources committed by Germany.
The labor market is, objectively, discriminatory: 20% of female workers stop working when their child is born; the post-maternity return is often burdened by organizational difficulties; therefore folds back on part time; the lower salary is accompanied by subsequent interruptions of the work activity; the coveted pension is reached with an allowance that is on average 46% lower than the average male pension.
The contrasting trends between birth rates (falling) and life expectancy (growing) are reflected in the asymmetry between the reduction of the active population and the increase in the number of retirees (Gabriella Di Michele, director general of INPS).
Italy has the highest polarization values in Europe: the lowest percentage of young people (13.2%) and the highest percentage of elderly people (22.8%). Similarly, while the elderly dependency index, as of 1 January 2019, (ratio between the number of elderly people and the active population) in Europe is equal to 31.4%, in Italy it is a maximum of 35.7%, slightly more of 3 persons of working age for each person aged 65 or over.
The asymmetry between the reduction of the active population and the increase in the area of pensioners is now a long-term structural trend both in Europe and in Italy. This results in an increase in age-related public spending (pension expenditure + social and health expenditure) with an impact on the sustainability of the welfare system. The expectation of life expectancy at 65 "guides the future trajectory of the requisites for access to retirement".
Two structural changes will predominantly determine pension spending in the coming decades:
to. the retirement and subsequent disappearance of the baby boomers' cohorts;
b. the transition to the fully contributory calculation scheme.
The reforms have helped to secure the pension system "but only by improving the models of income production will it be possible to guarantee the intergenerational pact and adequate levels of funding from the welfare state".
"The decline in the working age population is unlikely to be offset by higher capital intensity." Hence the need to broaden the participation of older generations in the labor market, effectively distribute skills, increase labor productivity, increase their retirement, "to mitigate the negative effects of aging on production".
The Active Aging Index, developed by Istat, in collaboration with international institutes, sees Italy in 17th place out of 28 countries in the European ranking, two points below the continental average, with a regression between 2012 and 2018. Youth employment is among the lowest in Europe and the number of NEETs holds the record.
Female employment in the 55-64 age group has a high percentage of part-time jobs due to the incidence of care tasks, with negative effects on future social security benefits.
The pandemic has made the spread of a forward-looking and effective active aging policy even more urgent. there is a lack of proposals for reform of considerable interest.
For the first time in Italian history, both the natural balance (deaths exceed births) and, since 2018, the migration balance (emigrants exceed immigrants) are negative. Over the last 6 years, over a million Italians have moved abroad to seek employment and a better welfare system.
The vulgate according to which immigrants take jobs away from Italians is without foundation. 80% of young Italians, at least with a high school diploma, are not, in fact, available to carry out the work of immigrants: carers, domestic workers, agricultural laborers, construction labor, loading-unloading cooperatives, small transports, cleaning and cooking. in the hotel restaurant sector.
In the counterfactual hypothesis that all immigrants in Italy were repatriated and the block to new immigration was total, employment for Italians would grow in residual quantities and in low-skilled jobs, while the condition of young graduates and high school graduates would remain unchanged. the labor market offers few prospects.
We must start from the fundamental premise of the first question: immigration, as well as emigration, are part of the wider demographic question and must be considered together. Migration is a phenomenon that must be governed, not fought, neither in entry nor in exit.
The point is delicate but the only serious way is to reopen regular channels of entry, programmed, controlled and selected also according to the needs of the labor market, in collaboration with the countries of origin. Specific entry channels, on the model of humanitarian corridors, should be assumed only for asylum seekers. All policies must be implemented seeking the collaboration of Europe, not fleeing from confrontation and negotiation.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/tutte-le-conseguenze-economiche-della-glaciazione-demografica-in-italia/ on Sat, 10 Jul 2021 07:33:59 +0000.