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One in four young Italians at risk of social exclusion

Wednesday, 12 April 2023 3:23 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 12 April 2023 5:04 AM ]

Max Civili
Press TV, Rome

A new report by the European Union statistical office Eurostat has found that around 25 percent of Italians aged between 15 and 29 are at risk of becoming poor.

The report follows another study published last month in which the Italian Federation of organizations working with homeless people warned that the number of young people without a fixed abode in the country rose by 20 to 25 percent over the past years.

Italy seems to have forgotten its youth as over 400,000 young people have migrated abroad since 2012. According to the Eurostat report on youth poverty, Italy was the fifth worst EU member after Denmark, Greece, Spain and Romania.

However, bad news also comes from the rest of Europe. A recent study by the charity Save the Children has found that over 200,000 more children were driven to the brink of poverty in EU countries in 2021 bringing the total number of children in dire need to around 20 million or one in four.

Socio-economic analysts say the conflict in Ukraine and the repercussions of Western sanctions against Russia have unleashed supply and demand shocks across the whole European Union. Sharp increases in the cost of living have brought unbearable challenges to the lives of millions of families who suddenly were forced to make cuts to spending on utilities and food, posing a risk to children’s well-being.

In 2021, almost 96 million people in the EU, representing around 22 percent of the population, were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Last year the situation might have even worsened in the Old Continent with energy prices increasing the cost of living for all Europeans and the burden not evenly distributed across the population.

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