["Both Open and Encased..." (La Spezia 2017). Foto Rb]
The research
objectives of this paper are to establish in what ways Italy in the 21st
century can be defined as a post-democracy characterized by late-modern social
dynamics within the context of the globalized world.[1]
Sociologists have described such a change in terms of “liquid modernity”
(Bauman), “risk society” (Beck), and individualistic behaviour (Elliott and
Emmert).[2]
And partly building on the way in which Crouch developed the concept of
post-democracy,[3] one
should understand the evolution of Western democracies, in a number of
countries since the 1980s, into political and social configurations where people’s
direct participation has decreased mainly due the formation of powerful
financial and political decision-making elites. Connected to this, and to
respond to disillusion with classic parliamentary democracy, some varieties of
right-wing populism have emerged in Italy like elsewhere in Europe. Italian
populist sentiments are embodied mainly in the political movements of Lega Nord
(Northern League) and Movimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement).[4]
Even though such political features are important to the point that they would
deserve a separate study, this paper is rather concerned with another relevant
aspect of post-democracy, that is inequality. To understand Italian 21st-century
inequality, some data on class composition will be provided, followed by
observations on poverty and wealth, the position of youth, women and migrants,
and finally the representation of some of these social problems in two novels
and one film. Let us begin with class composition.
1. Class composition
In the 1980s and 1990s,
Italian social classes changed due to a renewal in the mode of production which
included economic globalization, computerized technology, restructuring of
companies and labour flexibility. Even though recent analysis has gone as far
as to deny the concept of social class in favour of social groups,[5]
a more traditional approach in three main classes (upper, middle and lower) is
taken below.
The Italian upper class is
comprised of 6.5% of the population.[6]
The middle class, if
understood as those employed in the tertiary sector, is the widest class. The
upper middle class is comprised of entrepreneurs, service personnel,
professionals and politicians. The lower middle class is constituted by
retailers, artisans, clerks and teachers. In 2011, 46% believed they belonged in
the middle class, a lower number than the 50% to 60% figure given in previous
years.[7]
This reduction reflects the international change in middle class composition as
identified by Collins with reference to technological change, and as a result
of the recession which started in 2008.[8]
In 2013 a survey by Sciarrone, Bosco, Meo and Storti underlined the precarious
situation, the loss of status and the sentiment of economic and psychological uncertainty
of the Italian middle class.[9]
Meanwhile industrial and
agricultural workers constantly decreased in numbers. In 2004, 30% were
labourers in industry, and 4.5% in agriculture. However, in 2011, Diamanti found
out that 48% of Italians perceived their class as “ceti popolari”, an
expression roughly translatable as lower class,[10]
including not only what used to be called “proletariat”, but also lower paid
clerks, school teachers, part-time contracts, half-employed people, the
unemployed, and immigrants from countries outside the EU. The Italian lower
class, in brief, has expanded, as predictable, during the recession, and a
number of former members of the middle class have receded to “ceti popolari” which
are now characterized, as Magatti observes, by fragmentation, economic
vulnerability, insecurity and a sense of humiliation.[11]
Even though the Italian economy seems to have improved in 2016 and 2017, this
general picture would appear to remain mostly valid so far.
2. Poverty and wealth
Inequality results from the
above data, and it is in line with international research.[12]
According to Gallino, there has been an “increase in global inequality due to
lack of income redistribution”.[13] This is true in Italy, too,
where a consequence of
inequality has been the increase in wealth of the rich and the impoverishment
of others. In 2005, according to Censis, 3.7% Italians had an income exceeding
one million dollars; and 10% of the richest families owned 41.5% of the
national wealth.[14] In 2011, 22,900,000 people
aged 15 to 64 had no regularly paid income out of a total population of 59,380,000.[15]
In 2010, an Istat survey noticed that 24.7% were
“experiencing the risks of […] social exclusion”.[16] A 2011 Caritas report confirmed
that poverty in Italy did not only consist in financial deprivation, but also
in exclusion from constitutional
rights such as work, and decrease in the application of general social rights
such as adequate wealth, decorous home and higher education.[17]
3. Youth malaise
A dramatic fact in relation to the future
of Italy is that youth is one of the social layers affected by inequality due
to poverty. In a 2010 Eurispes survey, 83.2% Italians aged 18 to 39 had acquired
a Bachelor degree, and 55.9% held a Master’s degree, yet the overwhelming
majority were able to obtain only badly paid part-time jobs.[18]
Youth unemployment figures have been high for several years. A 2011 Caritas
report indicated 30% unemployed young people in the North and 50% in the South
of Italy.[19] A
2016 Istat survey showed improvement of, but not a solution to, the problem.[20]
The expression “the youth
question” has become common in Italian sociological and media discourse due to
these facts, which are further aggravated by the necessity for several young
people to emigrate in order to find jobs adequate to their qualifications. Istat
gives a general figure of 147,000 Italian emigrants in 2015, 8% more than 2014.
Most of them are highly qualified. The main destinations of Italian young emigrants
in the 21st century have been Germany, the United Kingdom,
Switzerland, France but also other economically attractive countries.
Vecchio’s
inquest among young Italians shows a generation characterized by disappointment
about lack of work and by expectations for non-traditional social roles.[21]
4. The condition of women
The position of women in Italian society
has undoubtedly improved since the 1970s when strong feminist movements
questioned traditional societal roles. Laws were passed, most notably a law on divorce
(1970), the family law (1975), a law on abortion (1978), and regulations
against sexual violence (1996).
In education, equality seems to exist. Women
normally perform better than men; degrees are obtained by more women than men
(58% of the total of graduates are women); and 67,7% of individuals enrolled in
postgraduate courses are women.[22]
With reference to work, several women have
achieved professional positions, but there is still discrimination in the level
of salary between men and women, and fewer women than men achieve managerial
positions. The average salary of women in Italy in 2016 was 5.5% lower than the
average salary of men. This put Italy below some other European countries on
the 50th position in the Job Pricing gender salary gap
internationally.[23]
Significant changes have taken place in
the last fifty years in relation to family. The average time for marrying
(round the age of 30) is similar for women and men; contraception is not
practiced only by 10.4% of couples;[24]
and the birth rate is the lowest in Europe (1.35 in 2015).[25]
However, inequality manifests itself in various ways. The reasons for the low
number of births include scarce government welfare and late entrance into the
labour market. Discrimination also takes place in relation to domestic work,
still mostly conducted by women.[26]
A disquieting set of statistics is about violence. According to 2014 Istat
data, “6,788,000 women aged 16 to 70 were exposed to physical and sexual
violence during their lives”.[27]
5. Immigration
Foreign residents in Italy have more than
trebled in the last fourteen years, from 1,549,373 at the beginning of 2003 to
5,046,994 in 2017 (8.3% of the total resident population).[28]
There are laws which control the migrant
flux,[29]
however difficulties have increased due to wars and other humanitarian
emergencies in the last decade which have brought a high number of people to
Europe via Sicily.
Foreigners go to Italy mostly in search
of work (42% in 2016),[30]
and some are refugees (9.2% requested asylum in 2016).[31]
The biggest community comes from Romania (23.2% of the total of migrants in 2017).
The majority of people from non-EU countries come from Albania (8.9%), Morocco
(8.3%), China (5.6%), Ukraine (4.6%) and the Philippines (3.3%).[32]
In Italy, immigrants, though in the best
of occasions integrated, are still treated unequally in many cases. Extreme
racism unfortunately took place on some occasions. In general, even legal
immigrants often work in underpaid jobs and are exposed to prejudice. However,
compared to previous surveys, the perception of immigrants as a threat to local
jobs decreased from 44.6% nationally in 2008 to 26% of people interviewed in
North-Eastern Italy in 2014, whereas the number of those who considered migrants
as a positive resource remained almost stable from 44.6% in 2008 to 42% in 2014.[33]
Some political groupings still campaign against immigration, counteracted by institutional
agencies, charitable associations and cultural mediators who promote mutual understanding.
Integration is favoured depending on where immigrants go, what their original
cultures are, and what types of education and professional competence they
have.
[Roberto Bertoni]
[1]
This paper, prepared for the 25th International Conference on Social
Science and Humanities (Singapore, 7-8 November 2017), originates from a module
taught at Trinity College, University of Dublin, by the present writer on
“Italian Society, Contexts and Texts”. The research outcomes reached so far are
illustrated in full online in Contesti
sociali italiani e testi, available in Italian at http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/460587_ae9475a4410343049ecde5d864
df82e3.pdf.
[2]
See Z. Bauman, Liquid Modernity,
Cambridge, Polity, 2000; U. Beck, Risk
Society, London, Sage, 2002; A. Elliott and C. Lemert, The New Individualism, London, Routledge, 2006.
[4] See, among others, D. Albertazzi and D. McDonnell,
ed., Twenty-First Century Populism: The
Spectre of Western European Democracy, Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan,
2008; M. Tarchi, L’Italia populista,
Bologna, Il Mulino, 2003. M. Damiani, ed., “Il nuovo radicalismo politico: tra
destra e sinistra”, Rivista di politica,
2.2017, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2017.
[5] This is the approach taken by Istat, Rapporto annuale 2017 (https://www.istat.it/it/files/2017/05/RapportoAnnuale2017.pdf).
[8]
“The end of middle class work: No more escapes”, in AA. VV, Does Capitalism Have a Future?, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 37-70.
[9] R. Sciarrone, N. Bosco,
A. Meo, L. Storti, La costruzione del
ceto medio. Immagini sulla stampa e in politica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2011,
p. 131.
[10] I. Diamanti, L’Italia sempre più povera. Per la prima
volta è minoranza chi si sente ceto medio, “La Repubblica”, 23-5-2011
(http://www.cgil.it/rassegnastampa/articolo.aspx?ID=6294).
[12]
See in particular T. Pikketty, Capital in
the Twenty-First Century, The Belknap Press of Berkeley University Press,
2014.
[13] L. Gallino, La lotta di classe dopo la lotta di classe. Intervista a cura di P. Borgna, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2012, pp. 104,
120, 18 e 23.
[14] Trentatreesimo rapporto Censis sulla situazione sociale
del Paese, Rome, Cnel, 2005
(http://www.censis.it/10?shadow_ricerca=4380).
[15] Ibidem, p. 25.
http://notizie.tiscali.it/articoli/economia/11/05/23/Istat-rapporto-italia.html.
[17] Giuseppe
Benvegnù-Pasini, Maria Bezze, Walter Nanni, Vittorio Nozza, Tiziano Vecchiato
on behalf of Caritas italiana and Fondazione E. Zancan, Poveri di diritti. Rapporto 2011 su povertà ed esclusione sociale in
Italia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2011, p. 21.
[18] Rapporto Istat sulla situazione del paese (2010), cit.
[19] G. Benvegnù-Pasini et
al., cit.
[20] http://www.istat.it/it/files/2016/04/Cap_3_Ra2016.pdf.
[21] C. Vecchio, Giovani e belli. Un anno fra i trentenni
italiani all’epoca di Berlusconi, Milan, Chiarelettere, 2009.
[22]
http://sis-statistica.it/magazine/IMG/article_PDF/article_203.pdf.
[23] La Repubblica, 20-10-2017
(http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2017/10/20/news/stipendi_gap_uomo_donna-178820815/).
[24] Rapporto sullo stato di salute delle donne in Italia
(http://www.salute.gov.it/imgs/C_17_pubblicazioni_811_allegato.pdf).
[25]
https://www.istat.it/it/files/2016/11/Statistica-report-Nati.pdf.
[26] Statistics from Istat, Divisione dei ruoli nelle coppie, 2010;
quoted in D. Bersani, Indignate, Rome, Newton Compton, 2011,
p. 48.
[27]
https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/161716.
[28]
http://www.tuttitalia.it/statistiche/cittadini-stranieri-2017/.
[29] See Internazionale, 13-8-2015:
https://www.internazionale.it/notizie/2015/08/13/italia-immigrazione-leggi.
[31] Ibidem.
[32] http://www.tuttitalia.it/statistiche/cittadini-stranieri-2017/.
[33] Demos-Polis, http://www.demos.it/a00217. And php.https://www.ilgazzettino.it/home/l_immigrazione_
minaccia_risorsa_osservatorio_nordest_curato-332829.html.
