When Censis photographs the state of social health of the country, it has always played with highly evocative phrases and images. In the past years there had been talk of resentment, uncertainty, confusion and, finally, an "anxious society". For 2020 the 54th Report on the social situation of Censis, presented this morning, describes the Italian system as a "square wheel that doesn't turn" and the year that is about to end as that of the "black fear".
The picture that has been painted in recent months is gloomy and leaves little room for interpretation: “The virus has attacked an already tired society. Tested by years of resistance to income gaps and the decrease in investments, uncertain about future prospects, with a development model that is too fragile… This year we have been unable to see”. These are two relevant observations: "social tiredness" comes from afar and is the result of many years of wrong choices, unfinished projects, short-term visions that have generated in public opinion an ill-concealed sense of dissatisfaction that politics he could not interpret. The capacity for vision, on the other hand, crashes against the rocks of opportunities and conveniences which from time to time prevail over the general interests of the country.
What happened during this year that was significant in reading the Censis? “The undifferentiated distribution of bonuses and subsidies of all kinds and types has eased the difficulties of businesses and families. The freeze on layoffs and the redundancy fund by way of derogation have placed a barrier against the risk of transferring the effects of the reduction in production to the weakest subjects. But public debt has been significantly increased, placing a further burden on future generations. The growth path envisaged is foreshadowed as a modest trampling of announcements already made too many times... And today the wait has turned into disorientation, the simplification of solutions in an emergency has become an underestimation of the problems, the contagion of fear risks changing in anger".
This last passage underscores a common concern: until when will the subtle social/health/economic balance imposed by the Covid pandemic hold? Indeed, there is no doubt that the Coronavirus, not only in Italy, has laid bare all the difficulties and fragile balances laboriously achieved in past years. The Censis records the reduction in household consumption of around 19% on the monthly average and a net value of around 20 billion, dragging almost all economic sectors into the negative, from tourism to agriculture. The only sector that has seen positive signs is that relating to "digital spending": due to the forced closure of homes, both for the nine smart working methods, and in remote schooling, as well as in simple entertainment and audiovisual consumption. In recent months, our country has seen its position move from 25th place in the European DESI ranking (Digital Economy and Society Index) and could allow it to rise up a couple of positions.
An interesting chapter concerning the "narration" of what happened and the perception that citizens derive from it refers to the "media diet" of Italians during the pandemic. The media market has seen some phenomena already known before Covid stabilize (the consumption of linear television decreases slightly to the advantage of streaming); the radio maintains a stable role with a consolidated audience of 79% of Italians with a significant increase in digital listening (via PC or mobile phone) which grows by 17%. Everyone composes their media needs through different ingredients where the space occupied by the Internet is consolidated in constant growth: “From 78,4% to 79,3% of the population, with a positive difference of almost one percentage point in a year. The Italians who use smartphones rise from 73,8% to 75,7% (with a growth of 1,9%, when still in 2009 only 15% of the population used them)”. While the printed press continues in a state of crisis, maintaining constant the disaffection of readers who "migrate" to other sources of access to information, especially online.
Finally, the last chapter of the 54th Censis Report dwells on the issues of security and citizenship and poses a crucial question: who pays the heaviest bill for the lockdown? In an already fragile and delicate employment situation in the pre-Covid era, we read that "In June 2020 the labor market showed an activity rate of 63,4%, down by 1,8% compared to 2019, while for foreigners amounted to 64,8%, down by 6,2%”. Translated in other words, it means that around 23 million Italians have had to face further difficulties caused by a substantially reduced overall volume of family income. 90,2% of Italians, according to the Report, are convinced that the coronavirus emergency and the lockdown have most damaged the most vulnerable people, widening the already existing social inequalities"
As regards social security, however, we read a comforting fact: in the digital age, crime reduces its pressure "From 1 August 2019 to 31 July 2020, the crimes reported to the police were 1.912.344, with a decrease by 18,2% compared to the same period of the previous year… The reduction in thefts was 26,6%, -21,1% robberies, -16,8% homicides. It is a trend that confirms that of past years, but with an unprecedented acceleration, the effect of the lockdown". In the same digital era, however, another relevant phenomenon is being recorded and consolidated: online computer scams which increase by 12% compared to the previous year.
The Censis Report closes with words of hope and trust: “With fear and caution, our country waits and knows in filigree that it has resources, skills, intuition and experience to rethink and coldly rebuild the supporting systems of development, which his ingenious fervor rapidly exudes the new”.
