Italy selling houses for less than 20 thousand Euros!
The region of Calabria, which makes up the tip of the boot of Italy, will pay young people $33,000 to move there and start a business in a bid to combat population decline, according to Calabria’s Economic Development Department.
The pilot project aims to revive "inland areas" of southern Italy which are at risk of being extinguished, Gianluca Gallo, regional council to agriculture and economic development, said during a January news conference. In addition, the high cost of living in Italy and the lack of affordable housing options make it difficult for young people to establish themselves and build a stable future. Many young Italians are looking for opportunities abroad where they can earn higher salaries and enjoy a better quality of life.
African emigrants to Italy include Italian citizens and residents originally from Africa. Immigrants from Africa officially residing in Italy in 2015 numbered about 1,000,000 residents. Afro-Italians (Afroitaliani) are born and are raised in Italy, citizen of African descent or of mixed African and Italian roots. This is the only consistently growing demographic in Italy and some Italians are upset by this news seeing their culture as they put it becoming more increasingly African as their population drops by 200.000 per year! To aggravate the situation, the pandemic caused thousands of young people to lose their jobs, further increasing precarity and unemployment.
The working conditions experienced by young people in Italy today can be summed up in four words: underpaid, occasional, exploitative, and insecure. In the European Union, the average age at which people leave the parental home is 26.5 years old. In Italy, it is 29.9. This high average correlates with some of the EU’s lowest rates of workforce participation among young people. The presence of an adequate and reliable income is a major factor in the decision over whether to leave home. Carlo Giordano, board member of Immobiliare.it, cites a recent analysis that found that the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom flat, which rose 8 per cent between 2021 and 2022, is 877 euros per month. This figure does not include bills. Energy and environment regulator ARERA has calculated that average annual bills for natural gas and electricity come to 1730 and 1120 euros respectively. Both have risen sharply compared to 2021 – by 46 per cent for gas and 81 per cent for electricity. An Italian household thus needs over 13,000 euros a year to live in a rented apartment. This represents an increase of 15 per cent on 2021. When seen together with low pay and short-term contracts, the problem is obvious.
Romanians, with more than 1 million residents, represent the largest immigrant community, followed by Albanians, while Moroccans are the main group of non-European residents, followed by the Chinese. But it is only the Africans Italians are concerned with as they have higher birth rates than all other populations.
The largest group of immigrants from Africa are Arabs/Berbers from North Africa, numbering 641,085 official residents in 2016. By country of origin, most of these recent arrivals are from Morocco (437,485), Tunisia (95,645), Egypt (109,871) and Algeria (71,765).
The major ethnic group in Italy is the Italians, who account for 95% (above 60 million) of the total population of Italy. The remaining 5% of the population consists of ethnicities like Albanians, Romanians, Ukrainians, and other Europeans (2.5%); Africans (1.5%), and several other minorities (1%). It is that 1 percent that most concerns Italians as many are visibly melanated. Italy's prime minister said the migrants especially Tunisians must be stopped at the source “with a European mission, including a naval one if necessary, in agreement with the North African authorities to stop the departure of the boats.” Sept. 18, 2023
According to the Interior Ministry, nearly 126,000 migrants reached Italy by sea this year as of Thursday, nearly double the number from the same time last year.
The record flux of migrants is adding pressure on the right-wing government headed by Premier Giorgia Meloni, who had pledged a crackdown on illegal migration during the electoral campaign that led to her election last September.
On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called the surge in migrants’ arrivals witnessed in the past few days an “act of war,” adding that the government was ready to go “any possible way” to stop the flow.
“The diplomatic path is essential to follow, but the entire government is working day and night and I do not rule out any kind of intervention,” he said.
*Contributed by Giada Zampano in Rome
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