Two professors from the University of the Republic of San Marino have edited a book addressing the situation of young people in Italy, "forced to lower their expectations as they enter adulthood, trapped in a system of social guarantees that primarily protects older generations." The situation is characterized by data that in December 2019 reported a "youth unemployment rate" of "29 percent, 15 points higher than the European Union average," and they live in a country "where a third of the total population between the ages of 16 and 29 is considered at risk of poverty or exclusion," the introduction states.
The volume, titled "Young People and Society in Italy between the 20th and 21st Centuries – Customs, Demography, Gender, Education, Migration, Politics," was written by Laura Gobbi and Luca Gorgolini, who work at the University of San Marino in the Departments of Human Sciences and History, respectively.
Published by Il Mulino and currently available, the book compares the results of "research conducted by scholars from various disciplines," from demography to pedagogy, from political science to sociology, with the aim of "recovering the key pieces of a mosaic of knowledge capable of reconstructing the most evident characteristics of the condition of young people over the past few decades," the two academics write in the introduction. "The complex situation that young Italians must face at this juncture in the history of the Republic," the professors further specify, "is therefore not analyzed by relying solely on financial and economic events after 2008, but rather by developing an in-depth analysis that, in reconstructing the multiple processes underway within national society, takes on a diachronic dimension. This is therefore a broader reconstruction, capable of shedding light on certain dynamics specific to the Italian case and uniting levels of analysis that are often kept separate. The result is a framework of information and interpretations" that allow "a sharper focus on a particularly "treacherous and elusive object of study."
