Still living at home in Italy

It’s fairly common in Latin cultures for young people to remain living at home until they get married. But with young adults now marrying later, and with the cost of first homes rising, some Italians believe this tradition has gotten out of hand, to the point where it could affect the country’s economy and future demographics. You can read more in this story in the Christian Science Monitor.

To many Italian moms, it does not make a difference if the child they are kissing good morning is 3 or 30 years old. But to the government, it does – and officials want young adults booted out of the parental nest.

“We want the bamboccioni to move out,” Finance Minister Tommaso Padoa Schioppa recently said, using a term that evokes grown babies still attached to mamma‘s apron strings.

With fewer job options than their American peers and less generous welfare benefits than their European counterparts, nearly two-thirds of Italians between the ages of 30 and 34 are still sleeping in their childhood bedroom. Besides fostering stereotypes of spoiled youths, that figure has serious consequences for the country’s demographic balance. Without a house of their own, the young stay single, delay starting a family, and depress the country’s birthrate, already below replacement levels…

Now Italy’s center-left government is proposing a ¤999 ($1,431) yearly tax credit on rents for people ages 20 to 30, hoping that will encourage young adults to start living on their own and start a family. But experts say the measure, though encouraging, is not enough to undo cultural and economic factors keeping young men and women at home.

The 1960s, says Mr. Schioppa, produced a generation of parents who are letting their kids enjoy freedom without giving up the comforts of freshly washed linens and homemade lasagna.

“Young Italians have found a new formula for la dolce vita,” writes journalist Beppe Severgnini on his popular blog, “Italians.” But, he adds, it is also a matter of “unconfessed egoism of the parents,” who encourage the kids to stay at home as way of postponing the solitude of retirement.

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