The national government is urging Italy’s youth to leave the family nest.
Economy minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa recently announced that part of the 2008 budget will be aimed at helping Italy’s ‘big babies’ pay the rent for a place of their own.
Young adults’ need to start swapping comfort for independence came to the fore as Padoa-Schioppa presented the government’s 10.7-billion-euro budget package to a parliamentary committee last week.
The national government’s ‘A home for everyone plan’ introduces a two-billion-euro cut in housing taxes for Italians in lower wage brackets and half a billion euro for the construction of new affordable housing units across the country.
Officials hope that these incentives will attract Italy’s ‘big babies’, many of whom reside in Tuscany, to leave the nest. Statistics suggest that 80 percent of the region’s 20- to 30-year-olds still live with their parents. Seven out of 10 who still live at home have unstable or contract jobs.
In general, young adults in Italy live at home much longer than do their European counterparts, who typically earn double the salaries that Italian young people make. In Spain only 10 percent of those aged 18 to 34 live at home; 21 percent in Germany; and 12 percent in Finland.
