Escape is better. The numbers say it now: four years after graduation, young people who remain in Italy earn an average of 1.300 euros net per month. Those who went abroad earn nearly 500 more, ie 1.783. In times of crisis, in Italy more than in the rest of the world, it is above all young people who pay.
To rattle off the raw figures is an elaboration of Istat data curated by Carlo Barone, professor of Sociology at the University of Trento. To compose the average of 1.300 euros, in the Belpaese, there are clear differences, according to geographical and disciplinary area: in Northern Italy the average salary is 1.374 euros, against 1.306 in the center, a real midpoint, including mathematics, and 1.218 of Southern Italy.
The most profitable disciplines are healthcare in Northern and Central Italy, while computer engineering is gaining ground in the South. The least remunerative disciplines, on the other hand, are the humanities: Education, training and psychology in the North; Literature, Art, Languages, History and Philosophy in Central and Southern Italy. Another variable, perhaps the worst, is that of gender: even today, women graduates are paid considerably less than men.
The problem is a market problem, a gap between demand and supply which is becoming ever wider: "skilled jobs on the Italian market - reads the report - have remained the same as 30 years ago, but graduates have increased in the meantime . Kids with a university degree are more than the places available to them”.
The need, therefore, is not simply contingent, but "structural: we need to create more jobs for graduates, investing in research and in the cultural sector. It is not possible that in the country richest in art in the world, a graduate in Conservation of cultural heritage cannot find work or be paid a pittance".
The feeling that one has, therefore, of a country that does not focus on young people and does not value their human capital, is confirmed by the figures, composing the picture of a conservative production system, which invests only in low-cost labour.
The notorious, and at this point convenient, "brain drain" is only the tip of a much deeper iceberg, the most classic of vicious circles, described in the words of Professor Baroni: "It's a dog chasing its tail: the Italy doesn't value young people because it doesn't grow, but if it doesn't grow it's also because it doesn't focus on new recruits".
To reverse the course "It is necessary to invest in active employment policies, ie continuous training and outplacement services, to keep young people always active on the market". This is an appeal that reappears cyclically, translated into many more or less empty words and very few concrete facts.
