In half a century the families in Treviso have doubled, but the components decrease: almost half of the nuclei is made up of a single person. Marriages are decreasing, spouses are getting more and more advanced in age: this, in addition to the demographic phenomena affecting all of Western Europe, gives back an aging Treviso. Young people prefer to go elsewhere and the risk of falling below 80,000 inhabitants is just around the corner. These are some data offered by StatisticAll, the festival of statistics and demography, which is staged in Treviso until Sunday evening.
Work, the great desire to escape: almost one out of two Treviso citizens wants to change
Lorenza Raphael
The numbers
From 1961 to 2021, the number of families increased from 20,062 units to 39,828. It is the effect of the nuclearisation of the family, but what is striking is that 42.9% of families are made up of a single person (only 4.2% have 5 or more members) and the average number of members is 2 ,15 people. Singles and singles are 43% of the population, married 44: people get married less often and those who get married are older. In 1971 Treviso had 90,874 inhabitants, in 2021 there were 84,852 and between 2019 and 2020 there was a 0.75% drop in the population mainly due to Covid. The city presents profound differences in population density according to the areas: in Monigo, San Liberale and San Paolo and San Giuseppe there are 1,124 inhabitants per square km, in Sant’Angelo and Canizzano 564.
Young people on the run
“There is a tendency for young people to leave the city to go abroad or to the countryside – explains Eugenio Brentari, coordinator of StatisticAll and professor at the University of Brescia – To keep them, you need a job and above all a fair wage. With low salaries for graduates, it becomes hard in the first years of work, you don’t have children, you don’t start a family and everything is delayed. There is no policy to help young people and families: the latest budget law provides for aid to those with two or three children but our families are struggling to support the second. Milan has 48% of families with only one person, in Treviso we are at 43%. In 2021, 28% of marriages are between those over 55, people who are unlikely to have children: they are second or third marriages but they are people who will not give the city a demographic increase. Taking into account that in 2021 this age group is the most represented, one wonders where the population of Treviso is going, there is the risk of collapsing below 80 thousand inhabitants in a few years “.
Generational gap
Furthermore, the problem of the generation gap that is being created arises, not only in Treviso, where there are more and more elderly people and less and less young people: «The title of the festival, the demographic debt and intergenerational solidarity in a long-lived society, it gives hope – continues Brentari – It is clear that at the moment there are conflicts, as there will be in the future: many elderly people will arrive and will be over 100 and will need healthcare, but who pays? Young people. But where are the young people? They have a hard time working. Grandparents will lose their function of caring for their grandchildren because they will get further and further with age. They are serious problems. The experience of adults and older people can come into play, it makes no sense to retire people and not have them contribute in other ways. They can be supported by the great ability of young people to be smart, to adapt to changes”.