Now comes the season of ‘grandparents with suitcases’, following their children and grandchildren to the more liveable cities in the North
‘Voting with your feet’, they call it, when they mean you are choosing a place to live and work that offers better conditions, lower taxes, and a guaranteed better quality of life, not to mention free time. It’s an expression often used by young people when deciding where to study, and by migrant populations when searching for a more favourable job market. But the same is true for high-income earners seeking convenient tax havens or lower taxes on their income. In short, people changing where they live to find better working and living conditions. Of course, this is a highly political choice because it involves assessing local public services, the quality of civil administration, labour market opportunities and the relationship between the tax system and services. It also involves considering the general quality of civic life, hospitality and interpersonal relationships. In the US, many often make this choice, even several times over the course of a lifetime.
Now we discover, thanks to a insightful investigation by Chiara Saraceno in ‘La Stampa’, that this habit is spreading. It is no longer confined to young Italians (what we now commonly call the ‘brain drain’) but, (and why not?) older people are joining them, too.
‘Grandparents with suitcases’, reads the headline in La Stampa on 18 February. The article notes that, over the last twenty years, more than 184 thousand people over the age of 75 have left their provincial towns, especially in the south of the country, to live in large and small cities in northern Italy, without officially changing their place of residence. In 2002, they amounted to just under 100 thousand. So why have their numbers almost doubled in twenty years? Their reasons range from healthcare (on average better in the central and northern regions) and help with childcare to support with housing costs, with real estate values all on the rise. An OECD study documents a real ‘youth emergency’: 80% of under-30s live with their parents, and Italy is among the worst off in Europe. It has the second highest incidence of 20-year-olds who cannot or do not want to live alone, which is an impressive impoverishment of social capital and expectations for the future.
These support and family assistance practices, which benefit both young children and elderly family members, are building a new picture of Italy. This is an original type of internal migration within the country (and, although not mentioned in the latest Svimez report, there is also a large influx of migrants from abroad, which has had the positive effect of repopulating vast rural areas in the south).
It is worth noting the impact of family reconstitution in northern cities, where there are serious deficiencies in public services for nurseries and elderly care. This places significant demands on local authorities to invest in general social services, which often lack resources due to cuts at the central level.
This migration often goes undetected statistically because ‘grandparents with suitcases’ do not permanently leave their homes in Campobasso, Agrigento or Polignano, where they hope to return in old age after helping to raise their children and grandchildren. However, it also has a significant effect on the evolution of public social structures, as well as on the intersections and blending of traditional practices.
The Svimez Report states that there is strong territorial polarisation between the north and centre, which act as pull and retention areas for human capital, and the south, which plays a significant role in training the central-northern production system. This has led to further and growing degradation of the south.
In other words, the Report highlights the relatively new phenomenon of ‘early emigration’, whereby many young people from the South no longer see a future in the regions where they were born and have their loved ones. They now move to the centre-north to study at universities, aware that this will make it easier for them to find work and improve their prospects.
And their elderly parents and grandparents will follow.
This is a sign of the reduced attractiveness of the Sistema Paese (the concept that Italy is run and functions as a coherent whole), especially in the Central and Southern regions. The consequence is a growing depletion of active resources and even minimal entrepreneurial drive.
In short, beyond the stereotypical portrayal of the country, a profound movement is underway that threatens to alter social conditions and expectations, as well as political and social balance. The cost of this movement is far from insignificant: social and family ties are broken, community balances are altered and even the economic conditions necessary for minimal subsistence are affected. The countryside continues to empty and historic centres are decaying (the recent landslide in the town of Niscemi is just one example).
But anyone who looks in depth at the performance of the Sistema Paese might notice other phenomena of a different nature. For example, in certain areas of the south, young people are staying put, with the new generations interested in tourist and cultural services, as well as in the recovery of quality agriculture linked to high-level tourism. There are also increasing job opportunities for skilled technicians (engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians) in southern Italian cities such as Bari, Naples, Palermo and Catania. These cities are leveraging a new level of university education and ties with corporate headquarters in Milan to provide high-tech services in various international markets, perhaps in connection with the spread of artificial intelligence. While these might be small positive signs, they shouldn’t be overlooked.
It is also worth keeping an eye on the ‘grandparents with suitcases’ and parents who, as soon as they reach retirement age, follow their children to large and medium-sized cities in Central and Northern Italy. A wave of new emigration would radically alter the culture, habits and services in large areas of Italy. This is something that should not be overlooked, especially given the numbers: 185,000 people have moved in the last ten years, which is double the number who moved ten years ago, and this number is constantly growing.
‘Voting with your feet’, they call it, when they mean you are choosing a place to live and work that offers better conditions, lower taxes, and a guaranteed better quality of life, not to mention free time. It’s an expression often used by young people when deciding where to study, and by migrant populations when searching for a more favourable job market. But the same is true for high-income earners seeking convenient tax havens or lower taxes on their income. In short, people changing where they live to find better working and living conditions. Of course, this is a highly political choice because it involves assessing local public services, the quality of civil administration, labour market opportunities and the relationship between the tax system and services. It also involves considering the general quality of civic life, hospitality and interpersonal relationships. In the US, many often make this choice, even several times over the course of a lifetime.
Now we discover, thanks to a insightful investigation by Chiara Saraceno in ‘La Stampa’, that this habit is spreading. It is no longer confined to young Italians (what we now commonly call the ‘brain drain’) but, (and why not?) older people are joining them, too.
‘Grandparents with suitcases’, reads the headline in La Stampa on 18 February. The article notes that, over the last twenty years, more than 184 thousand people over the age of 75 have left their provincial towns, especially in the south of the country, to live in large and small cities in northern Italy, without officially changing their place of residence. In 2002, they amounted to just under 100 thousand. So why have their numbers almost doubled in twenty years? Their reasons range from healthcare (on average better in the central and northern regions) and help with childcare to support with housing costs, with real estate values all on the rise. An OECD study documents a real ‘youth emergency’: 80% of under-30s live with their parents, and Italy is among the worst off in Europe. It has the second highest incidence of 20-year-olds who cannot or do not want to live alone, which is an impressive impoverishment of social capital and expectations for the future.
These support and family assistance practices, which benefit both young children and elderly family members, are building a new picture of Italy. This is an original type of internal migration within the country (and, although not mentioned in the latest Svimez report, there is also a large influx of migrants from abroad, which has had the positive effect of repopulating vast rural areas in the south).
It is worth noting the impact of family reconstitution in northern cities, where there are serious deficiencies in public services for nurseries and elderly care. This places significant demands on local authorities to invest in general social services, which often lack resources due to cuts at the central level.
This migration often goes undetected statistically because ‘grandparents with suitcases’ do not permanently leave their homes in Campobasso, Agrigento or Polignano, where they hope to return in old age after helping to raise their children and grandchildren. However, it also has a significant effect on the evolution of public social structures, as well as on the intersections and blending of traditional practices.
The Svimez Report states that there is strong territorial polarisation between the north and centre, which act as pull and retention areas for human capital, and the south, which plays a significant role in training the central-northern production system. This has led to further and growing degradation of the south.
In other words, the Report highlights the relatively new phenomenon of ‘early emigration’, whereby many young people from the South no longer see a future in the regions where they were born and have their loved ones. They now move to the centre-north to study at universities, aware that this will make it easier for them to find work and improve their prospects.
And their elderly parents and grandparents will follow.
This is a sign of the reduced attractiveness of the Sistema Paese (the concept that Italy is run and functions as a coherent whole), especially in the Central and Southern regions. The consequence is a growing depletion of active resources and even minimal entrepreneurial drive.
In short, beyond the stereotypical portrayal of the country, a profound movement is underway that threatens to alter social conditions and expectations, as well as political and social balance. The cost of this movement is far from insignificant: social and family ties are broken, community balances are altered and even the economic conditions necessary for minimal subsistence are affected. The countryside continues to empty and historic centres are decaying (the recent landslide in the town of Niscemi is just one example).
But anyone who looks in depth at the performance of the Sistema Paese might notice other phenomena of a different nature. For example, in certain areas of the south, young people are staying put, with the new generations interested in tourist and cultural services, as well as in the recovery of quality agriculture linked to high-level tourism. There are also increasing job opportunities for skilled technicians (engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians) in southern Italian cities such as Bari, Naples, Palermo and Catania. These cities are leveraging a new level of university education and ties with corporate headquarters in Milan to provide high-tech services in various international markets, perhaps in connection with the spread of artificial intelligence. While these might be small positive signs, they shouldn’t be overlooked.
It is also worth keeping an eye on the ‘grandparents with suitcases’ and parents who, as soon as they reach retirement age, follow their children to large and medium-sized cities in Central and Northern Italy. A wave of new emigration would radically alter the culture, habits and services in large areas of Italy. This is something that should not be overlooked, especially given the numbers: 185,000 people have moved in the last ten years, which is double the number who moved ten years ago, and this number is constantly growing.