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00:00Italy is in trouble. The country is seen as one of the most beautiful places on earth.
00:05A million seemingly dream of living there. Yet every year, tens of thousands of young,
00:10skilled Italians leave in search of a better life. This is a problem which is only getting worse.
00:16Over the last decade, more than a million young graduates have left the country,
00:20and this brain drain is estimated to cost 130 billion euros. And the outflow hasn't slowed.
00:27In 2024 alone, nearly 100,000 graduates left the country. The Italian government has tried a
00:33number of things to fix this, but none seem to be working. Whilst at the same time,
00:38a very different kind of policy has also been rolled out. In 2017, Italy introduced a special
00:45tax plan for wealthy newcomers. Instead of paying normal rates, they can opt for a fixed annual fee,
00:51which means in practice, some millionaires pay less tax than locals earning a middle class salary.
00:56At the same time, Prime Minister Georgia Maloney has said she wants to, in her words,
01:02"...fight to give our young people a nation where they can stay, not one where they feel forced to
01:07leave." And whilst her words about staying are compelling, the Italian government's actions
01:11tell a different story. The clearest incentives in the system are aimed at people who never grew
01:16up there at all. So how did one of Europe's most admired countries become a place where its own young
01:21people can't afford to stay, while rich outsiders get tax discounts to move in?
01:27For a lot of young Italians, this isn't a dramatic decision anymore. It's just the only move that
01:32makes sense. Whole age groups are thinning out, and in more and more places, the people drawing pensions
01:38outnumber the people paying in. As bad as all of this sounds, it isn't the first time Italy has watched
01:43people pack up their bags and leave for another country. Italy has always had people on the move.
01:48In the early 1900s, millions of Italians left for the US and South America to escape rural poverty.
01:55Back home, they were trapped on small plots, working long hours for wages that barely covered food.
02:01And for many, leaving wasn't a dream, it was the only way out. But after World War II,
02:05that story flipped. For a few decades, Italy became the place you stayed in, not the place you escaped
02:11from. Post-war money started flowing in, and whole industries took off. Suddenly, there were real jobs in
02:17the automotive industry. Steel production, fashion, machinery. Companies like Fiat, Olivetti and Pirelli,
02:23and dozens of others were hiring anyone who could show up and work. For a lot of families,
02:27this was the first time a stable wage was even possible. You could find work in the north,
02:32buy a small flat, maybe even own a car. So people stopped dreaming about America,
02:37and started moving to Milan and Turin instead. The economy was booming, cities were growing,
02:42and by the 1980s, Italy's living standards had caught up with much of Western Europe. In large
02:48part, what had caused this boom was increasing productivity. That is, upgrades in machines and
02:53technology, which meant people could produce more with the same amount of effort. But around the 1990s,
02:58there started to be a shift, and this is really where Italy's problems begin to unfold. This was an
03:04era of globalisation and technological advancement. Many other nations were busy rewiring their economies
03:09around computers, larger firms, and global supply chains. But Italy had hit a structural wall.
03:15Its economy was still built on small, family-run firms designed for an earlier era, a model that
03:21had worked when incremental upgrades were enough to stay competitive. But by the 1990s, that model had
03:27hit its limit. Competing now required scale, professional management, and real investment in new
03:32technology. Italian firms were simply too small and too tightly controlled to make that leap.
03:37And that's the ironic part. The family-centred business culture people admire in Italy today
03:42was the same force that made modernisation difficult. These firms were loyal and stable,
03:47but they resisted mergers, avoided outside capital, and kept doing things the old way,
03:52even as the new world moved on. While there is some merit to all of those things,
03:56in an increasingly globalised world, it had its effects. Year after year,
04:00Italy started growing slower than almost every other rich country. By the 2000s,
04:05it sat near the bottom of Europe in terms of growth, even as other advanced economies kept
04:10pushing ahead. If you were already inside a large company or the public sector, you could ride that
04:14out. But if you were trying to get your first real job, it was a completely different story.
04:18Over time, the labour market split into two groups, insiders and outsiders. Insiders were older workers
04:25with permanent contracts that were expensive and complicated to terminate, whereas outsiders were
04:30mostly younger people pushed into fixed-term contracts that had no real security. You could
04:35finish university, send out dozens of applications and still end up with a six-month contract paying
04:40just enough to live at home with your parents. When the contract ended, you went back to the start
04:45of the queue. On paper, you were employed, but you were never able to build the kind of life your
04:49parents had built off a single stable job. The wider systems didn't help either. Starting a business
04:55meant dealing with layers of bureaucracy that moved slowly. And Italy regularly ranks as one of the
04:59hardest places in Europe to enforce contracts and get projects approved, with civil cases often
05:05taking two years to resolve. That had direct consequences for growth. Slow courts and heavy
05:10procedures make investors hesitant, delay infrastructure, and keep a lot of firms small
05:15when they should be scaling. This is what makes Italy so jarring for today's generation. This is not
05:20just Italy has always had emigration, it's almost a mirror image of the post-war story. Back then,
05:26the country felt poorer on paper, but the future was opening up. Now, Italy is richer on paper,
05:32but for many young people, the future feels like it's closing. Usually when a country grows steadily over
05:37decades, living standards rise, new industries appear, and the next generation feels confident about
05:43building its life at home. In Italy, that promise has broken down. For more than 20 years,
05:48the economy has barely moved. Productivity flat-lined, wages stalled, and the kind of
05:53opportunities young people expected never really materialised. If you're in your 20s now, you're
05:59stepping into a world that feels stuck compared to the ones your parents described. Nowhere is this
06:03more present than in the labour market. Millions of Italians now work without a stable contract,
06:08and most of them are under 30. Technically employed, but with no real savings, no security,
06:14and no clear path forward. Wages also turn that into a trap. Italy still has no national minimum
06:20wage, and close to 40% of private sector workers earn under €10 an hour. That means, for a young
06:26full-time employee, their monthly paycheck is around €1300 to €1400. Once you pay for transport and food,
06:33there is very little left over. Meanwhile, similar entry-level jobs in Germany or the Netherlands
06:37often pay hundreds of euros more per month, even before promotions. Housing also turns that mess
06:43into something that feels worse. Rents in Milan, Rome, and Florence have jumped far ahead of wages.
06:49In Milan, for instance, a one-bedroom flat now costs several hundred euros more than a typical young
06:55worker can reasonably cover. For anyone on a standard contract, even a modest place can swallow half of
07:01their income. Outside the big cities, the market is also frozen, but in a different way. Because wages have
07:07barely moved, while housing costs have climbed for decades, families hold onto property because it's
07:12one of the few stable assets in a stagnant economy, so homes tend to stay with families for generations.
07:18This adds another layer of difficulty getting onto the property ladder. Italy is among the countries
07:23with the highest average age of leaving home in Europe, with many young adults staying with their
07:28parents well into their 30s, while in Northern Europe, people often tend to move out between 18 and 20.
07:34Many people joke that the only realistic way to own a home in Italy is to wait for an inheritance,
07:39because buying one outright with savings and a bank loan feels so out of reach. And this is where
07:44the regional divide in Italy really starts to matter. If you grew up in the south and the only
07:49affordable option is to stay in the family home, then moving to centres of work like Milan or Bologna
07:54becomes far harder. This means people who can afford to relocate to the north do,
07:59while everyone else stays put. And over time, the south loses more and more of its young working
08:05population, while the north concentrates the highest salaries and most competitive jobs.
08:09This is compounding an already significant divide.
08:12When we were doing the research for this video, we ended up watching a lot of these kind of speeches,
08:18but there was a problem. A lot of these are all in Italian. You can rely on subtitles, but you
08:23still miss
08:23tone, slang, and the real meaning behind what people are saying. I wanted to actually understand more,
08:29so I've started to use today's sponsor, Lingopie. I'm learning through real TV shows and films,
08:35instead of boring lessons. I can click any word in the subtitles for an instant translation,
08:40and it automatically saves as a flashcard so I can remember it for later. That alone has helped my
08:45vocabulary stick far better than anything else I've tried before. And the AI pronunciation tool has also
08:51been surprisingly useful, because I can practice lines from the show and get proper feedback on
08:55how close I am to a native speaker. And the scale of the library makes a real difference. There are
09:01over 3000 shows across 14 languages, so it generally feels like immersion rather than studying. It also
09:08doesn't really feel like boring learning, so even just watching 10 minutes a day of a show has improved
09:13my listening massively. If you want to try it, use my link in the description for a 7-day free
09:18trial
09:18and 55% off the annual plan. Now let's get back to the video. I mean, Italy is almost two
09:25countries
09:25in one. The northern regions like Lombardi, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna hold most of the advanced
09:31manufacturing, finance, and export-oriented industries. Whereas in the south, regions have
09:36far fewer dynamic employers and far higher unemployment, as they account for nearly a third
09:41of Italy's population, but only about 22% of its economic output. In some of these regions,
09:46only around 45% of people aged 15 to 64 have a job, compared with more than 70% across
09:53the
09:54European Union as a whole. This divide also shows up in income. Northern provinces produce levels of
09:59output per person that look more like Austria or southern Germany, while parts of the south sit
10:04closer to two-thirds of the EU average. For a young person, that gap isn't abstract. It shapes everything
10:10from your starting salary to whether you can even imagine building a life where you grew up. And once
10:15enough young people leave, that decline compounds. There are fewer locals to start companies, fewer
10:20taxpayers to support public services, and fewer families putting children into schools. Classrooms
10:26merge, some close altogether, and small shops start to disappear as spending power drains away.
10:32Meanwhile, the north keeps pulling ahead, because that's where both the talent and the investment flow.
10:37For many young southerners, staying in their region means giving up on the kind of careers they know
10:41exist elsewhere. And this is where one of Italy's real problems start to emerge.
10:46When jobs feel temporary, pay is weak, and housing is expensive, people start delaying families.
10:52Italy now records fewer births each year than any time since it became a unified state. Recent figures
10:58show annual births at around 370,000, while deaths exceeded births by hundreds of thousands. At the same
11:05time, people are living longer. So each year, there are fewer young workers and more retirees drawing pensions.
11:10That is how you end up with a country where there are far more people over 65 than under 35.
11:16The politics of why Italy is the way it is start to click once you see the age structure being
11:21developed. Italy spends more on pensions than almost any other country in Europe. Year after year,
11:26roughly 15% of everything the country produces goes into pensions, compared with closer to 11 or 12%
11:33in many other EU economies. That is money other countries put into schools,
11:37childcare, or helping people into work. Close to 40% if Italy's entire social budget goes to
11:44retirement benefits, while the level of money going into support for families and children
11:48sits near the bottom of Western European rankings. That pattern is not an accident. For decades,
11:54Italian politics has been built around protecting retirees. Special schemes for certain professions,
11:59like public sector workers, railway staff, and some state-owned companies, alongside so-called
12:04baby pensions that once let people retire in their early 50s, were all part of a political bargain
12:10that traded generous replacement rates and early retirement deals for votes and social peace.
12:15Older Italians also turn out to vote more than anyone else, and they make up a big share of the
12:20electorate. They are organized, they follow politics closely, and parties know they cannot afford to
12:25lose them. Now, this is a trend that you see pop up across quite a lot of countries with aging
12:29populations, whether it be in France, Spain, the UK. So any serious attempt to re-balance the system,
12:36whether it's tightening pension rules, lifting retirement ages again, or shifting money towards
12:40childcare and support for young families, carries real risk. In practice, it means telling the most
12:46reliable voters in the country that their benefits might shrink, so that people who often earn less
12:51and vote less can get a little more. Protests, strikes, and electoral punishment all lurk in the
12:57background. So governments tend to avoid these fights. They protect what is already in place,
13:02pension promises are honored, benefits for current retirees are guarded, and reforms that would help
13:07young people are often watered down, delayed or quietly dropped. The result is a system built to
13:13preserve the position of those who made it through the old model, not to make life easier for those
13:17entering it now. And when Italy does decide to be bold on tax policy, it often doesn't start with
13:23young people. In 2017, the government introduced a special flat tax regime for high net worth
13:28individuals who moved their tax residents to Italy. Rather than paying standard rates on their foreign
13:33income, they can choose to pay a fixed lump sum each year, no matter how much they earn abroad.
13:39That lump sum started around €100,000, but was later doubled and is now set to rise again.
13:45So far, only a few thousand people have actually used the scheme, but they are among the richest in the
13:49world, with many settling in Milan and other desirable cities, buying property and plugging
13:54into a simplified tax life. From the government's perspective, this looks efficient. A few thousand
13:59wealthy residents paying a flat €200,000 or €300,000 a year adds up to €200,000 in extra revenue,
14:06without the political pain of touching pensions or rewriting labour law. But when you set that against
14:11the rest of the budget, the limits become clear. Even if every eligible millionaire signed up,
14:16the flat tax scheme would only cover a sliver of that bill. In 2023, roughly 1,500 people used the
14:23regime, bringing in a few hundred million euros of revenue, which is nothing when you realise
14:27Italy spends well over €300 billion a year on social protection and pensions. The money also lands
14:34unevenly, and most of these newcomers concentrate in a few rich cities and neighbourhoods, buying
14:38expensive homes and using high-end services. That helps local real estate markets and a narrow slice
14:44of the economy, but it doesn't turn into the broad-based wage growth for the young people stuck on
14:49temporary contracts. This also sharpens the sense that the system's clearest incentives are aimed at
14:54people who have already made their money somewhere else. The big chance to change course arrived with
14:58the European Union's recovery fund after the pandemic. Italy secured close to €200 billion in
15:04grants and loans, making it one of the biggest beneficiaries in Europe. Roughly 40% of the money was for
15:10the
15:10south, where the investment is needed most. Think about it. New rail links and upgraded stations,
15:15better roads and bridges, faster broadband, green energy projects, digitalised public services. If done well
15:22and on time, these investments could make workers more productive, cut regional gaps and create the
15:27kind of jobs that people are convinced to stay for. In practice, the old bottlenecks that held Italy back
15:32are now holding back these plans too. The public sector has struggled to hire enough engineers, planners and
15:38specialists to design and manage these projects. The roles on offer are often temporary and modestly paid,
15:44so the same young Italians who might fill them are tempted for better options abroad. And local governments,
15:49especially in smaller municipalities, have tiny teams trying to handle complex procurement and oversights.
15:55And some milestones have already been missed. And at one point, the European Commission delayed a scheduled payment
16:00because key reforms and targets were running behind. Each delay reinforces the feeling that Italy is good at
16:06making plans but bad at finishing them. Put all this together and we realise why everybody is leaving Italy.
16:12It's not just low birth rates or one controversial tax policy. It's a system where young people face
16:18insecure work, flat wages, expensive housing, deep regional divides and a political structure tilted
16:24towards protecting the old. At the same time, the country rewards outside wealth and struggles to turn rare
16:30chances for renewal into real change. In that context, packing your bags does not feel like abandoning your
16:35country. It feels like the only real way to build the kind of future Italy once promised but no longer
16:41father's country konuşture reliably delivers.
16:42So
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