“No strategy”: Italy’s socio-economic landscape amid structural challenges and a lack of vision

Abstract

Since the end of the so-called “golden age”, Italy has experienced a gradual loss of strategic vision. To account for this, the essay focuses on three key dimensions: the reduction in the size of family networks, which are increasingly under pressure in the context of a welfare system that has historically been “family-oriented” and lacking in reconciliation policies; the deterioration in the quality of the employment system, which is still characterised by low productivity, stagnant wages and the incomplete participation of young people and women; an exclusively reactive and therefore short-sighted management of migration phenomena, still focused on a predominantly work-based “subordinate integration”. Without a change in perspective, Italy will face an even more difficult future than it has experienced so far, with obvious repercussions in terms of social inclusion.