There Calabria it is a land that risks withering within future estimates that follow the thread of a constant trend that pushes towards a demographic crisis now irreversible. Few cradles, aging residents, youth emigration and increasingly less competitive public services. A horizon of shadows that closes in front of troubled scenarios that progressively worsen. And with fewer young people able to produce and more elderly people to assist, the INPS granary is destined to empty soon. Faster in the South than in the North.
Easter Tridico – MEP for the M5S – led the State Social Security Institute for five years. And for five years he inspired reforms and welfare strategies for the South. A South that he carries in his heart and when he can he willingly returns there. «I’m in Sila for a few more days. Then I’ll leave for Brussels with the whole family». Tridico comments on those data that push his land into a cone of shadow: «More workers than pensions? The ratio in the South is one pensioner for every worker, a figure that is valid in Puglia, Sicily and Calabria. In the rest of Italy it is 1.4. Which is not even that good. The truth is that in the South we believed that it was enough to leave women at home and have them have children to be okay. Today we know that this was not true, in fact it was a serious mistake. The fertility rate of women is higher where there is a higher female employment rate. But to have more children, services are needed in addition to work with policies of conciliation between work and family. Today we find ourselves without nurseries, without income and without employment. And so our young people go to the North. This should be explained to those who push on the fire of differentiated autonomy. Part of the fiscal residue that forms in the North is the result of the sacrifice of workers from the South who work in the North. In 2023, in my last year at the helm of INPS, the Government asked me which social security matters could be devolved to Differentiated Autonomy. My answer was clear and convinced: none. And this is because national solidarity must be created starting from work precisely because we know the migratory flows within Italy. Otherwise, how do we consider my brothers, and I have seven, who work in Bologna, Turin and Parma? Do we include them among those participating in the positive fiscal residue of the North or do we aggregate them to the South in difficulty? When we talk about work within Italy, it must be considered as a national factor and not of each individual region.
For now, however, that sense of general abandonment prevails. Here everything becomes difficult, sometimes impossible. This is the land of delays, a land that politicians have filled exclusively with promises. In reality, from Naples down, another Italy begins, an Italy that moves slowly between denied rights and mass unemployment. There is the one for healthcare that forces people to leave (expenses for passive mobility have returned to exceed 300 million euros in 2023). And then there are the other essential services, schools, transport, roads. Negativity that fuels the mass exodus towards places that ensure better living conditions, with efficient services and the possibility of securing a job in a short time. According to Tridico “the depopulation that is affecting the South is no longer just a problem of work. For goodness sake, the employment problem is there and Svimez recently said that, in the last twenty years, the South has lost 1.4 million young people for work reasons. And this has made the imbalance in Calabria between the number of pensions and workers more evident. A negative balance that is the result of the strong migration of young people from the South who have gone to the North or abroad to work. If there had not been this enormous outflow, we would have also had greater sustainability. This is why when the Government talks about differentiated autonomy and the fiscal residue that is created in the North with the taxes paid, we should remind them that in the flows of new workers there are also 1.4 million young people from the South who have moved to the North where, overall, 12 million southerners live. If we could rebalance these numbers, the pension accounts in the South would be significantly better”.
INPS is tilted on one side. Policies are needed to rebalance the waterline. Even in Calabria. And Pasquale Tridico has clear ideas: «If healthcare, schools and roads were improved, net of work, perhaps young families would stay in the South». Then there is the wage policy. And the invitation is to go beyond the current backyard economy: «We cannot continue to be the Disneyland of Italy and Europe. We cannot continue to live with bars and restaurants. We cannot think of living only four months a year with the tourism we have. Because this does not allow an important region like ours to live. Low wages, with precarious jobs, determine low social security contributions and do not guarantee a pension for the future. We must be careful about how investments in productive sectors are formed. Continuing to invest only in bars and restaurants means certain decline. The high wages that are created when investments are made are indispensable. Focusing on public and private investments allows us to increase the demand for work and guarantee stable careers and high wages. We need to reverse this trend. Among other things, in most of the low-tech services we also have a high level of tax and social security evasion. These data do not appear in the clear numbers. In Italy there are 3.4 million undeclared workers. If we had the possibility of considering the hidden fraction we would have the possibility of raising the ratio to 1.6 which would make social security sustainable. Therefore, to reverse the trend we need to focus on investments and the fight against tax and social security evasion».
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