The rift between Northern and Southern Italy is widening more and more, and the phenomenon of emigration towards the northern regions is once again current. The increasingly less edifying picture is drawn by the Svimez report, according to which the Italian Mezzogiorno is even depopulating, particularly in the smaller towns, which are experiencing a real "haemorrhage of inhabitants". According to advances released to the press, there were over 2002 million emigrants from the South between 2017 and 2, of which 132.187 in 2017 alone. Of the latter, we read, "66.557 are young (50,4%, of which 33% are university graduates)". The internal migratory balance, net of returns, “is negative by 852 thousand units – continues Svimez -. In 2017, 132 southerners left, with a negative balance of around 70 thousand units”. The recovery of migratory flows is "the real southern emergency, which in recent years has gradually spread to the rest of the country".
ECONOMY IN RECESSION
The reasons for the new wave of exoduses are well known but no less alarming: the economy which once again sees the specter of recession, the job gap compared to other areas of the country which is once again digging itself in, and the services not up to par of the standards enjoyed by other compatriots. “In the progressive slowdown of the Italian economy – explains Svimez -, the territorial rift has reopened which will lead to an opposite trend between the areas, causing the South to plunge back into the recession from which it had emerged too slowly". According to Svimez, in 2019 “Italy will record substantial stagnation, with a very slight increase in GDP of +0,1%. In the Centre-North it should grow slightly, by just +0,3%. In the South, on the other hand, the expected trend is -0,3%”. In terms of investments, only the construction sector showed stability in the last year, while those of companies in machinery and equipment stopped, with a very strong slowdown compared to the previous year: +0,1%, against +4,8% in the Centre-North.
WORK
The economic difficulties in the broadest sense are combined with a worsening of the employment situation. Svimez estimated that the employment gap between the South and the Centre-North (calculated by multiplying the difference between the specific employment rates of the two divisions by the southern population) in 2018 was equal to 2 million 918 thousand people, net of the armed forces. The sectors in which there are the greatest gaps are services (1 million and 822 thousand units, -13,5%), industry in the strict sense (1 million and 209 thousand workers, -8,9%) and health care, household services and other services (which overall have a gap of around half a million units). The female employment rate in the South and Islands is still too low, just 2018% in 35,4, against 62,7% in the Centre-North, 67,4% in the EU28 and 75,8% in Germany .
PUBLIC SERVICES
In the face of this picture, the hand of the public does not affect. "The weakening of public policies in the South significantly affects the quality of services provided to citizens," says the report. If you look at healthcare, for example, there are 28,2 ordinary hospital beds for every 10 inhabitants in the South, against 33,7 in the Centre-North. This gap becomes macroscopically wider in the social welfare sector, in which the southern regions lag above all in services for the elderly. Indeed, for every 10 elderly users over 65, 88 benefit from home assistance integrated with health services in the North, 42 in the Centre, and just 18 in the South. Even more dramatic are the data regarding school construction. Compared to a fluctuating average of around 50% of the school complexes in the North that have the certificate of usability or habitability, in the South they are just 28,4%. Furthermore, while in the primary schools of the Centre-North full-time for pupils is a constant in 48,1% of cases, in the South it drops to 15,9%.
