Gloomy scenarios for Italy in the 57th Censis report on the social situation of the country.
According to the report, released today, in 2040 couples with children will decrease to represent 25.8% of the total and single-person families will increase to 9.7 million (37%).
Not only that: in less than 20 years, Italian families made up of elderly people will become almost 60% (5.6 million).
And again, according to estimates, in 2040 10.3% of elderly people will continue to have disability problems. The elderly today represent 24.1% of the overall population and in 2050 there will be 4.6 million more: they will reach a weight of 34.5% of the total population and will be increasingly childless and increasingly alone.
The report also highlights how in 2050, therefore in less than thirty years, Italy will have lost a total of 4.5 million residents, as if the two largest cities, Rome and Milan, were to disappear.
The demographic decline will be the result of a decrease of 9.1 million people under 65 and a simultaneous increase of 4.6 million people over 65.
Faced with this far from rosy horizon, however, Censis highlights a sort of general underestimation of the problems, with Italians appearing as "sleepwalkers" and "blind to omens".
«Some economic and social processes that are largely predictable in their effects - we read in the report - seem removed from the country's collective agenda, or are in any case underestimated. Although their impact will be disruptive to the stability of the system, ignorance in the face of dark omens translates into guilty irresolution."
In short, Italian society seems to be "affected by sleepwalking, plunged into a deep sleep of the rational calculation that would be needed to deal with structural dynamics with disastrous outcomes".
(Unioneonline/lf)
