The electoral campaign always has a limit: the use of quick, and therefore superficial, slogans to obtain immediate consent. If this is the typical feature of the pre-election period, today the lack of vision and in-depth analysis is even more serious, because the city of Milan, after the pandemic, undergoes important changes which must be dealt with immediately. It is
convinced Alessandro Rosina, professor of demography and statistics at the Catholic University of Milan.
Professor Rosina, what is happening in Milan from a social point of view?
What is happening is that the pandemic is further reinforcing a trend that was already underway for the past 10 years. We live in a city that on the one hand was attractive to young people from all over Italy for work reasons, but at the same time failed to give complete answers for those who wanted a life plan, not just a profession.
Loading…
So a less hospitable city than you think?
Mind you, the indicators regarding employment are good, especially female employment, which is at 66.8% (data referring to 2018) against the Italian average below 50%. But here the birth rate is below expectations, it is in line with the Italian average, and after the first wave of Covid we are witnessing a -12%
of births. So something is wrong.
What is missing?
There is a lack of readily available services and information. Not much has been done for housing policies for young people, to increase services such as kindergartens and baby-sitting activities managed by the public, to give the possibility of reconciling work and family times, especially for women. If in a big city, where the professional career is central, services that support families are not offered, it is clear that training is given up because having children is seen as a problem rather than a resource. Added to this is the fact that often those who live in Milan have moved, and therefore do not benefit from the family network that practically acts as a welfare in Italy.
Which city should we take as an example?
We should look to
other European capitals. I’m not talking about Sweden, where women’s employment
it is well over 80%. Let’s look at what Berlin has done in the last fifteen years, we could do the same, investing in reconciliation policies, with both public and private initiatives, favoring working hours and reducing the costs of services
for those with children.