Poor, Poorer, PoorestOnce
upon a time, Italy's old Mezzogiorno was Europe's most impoverished
region. It still is—only much more so.
By
Barbie Nadeau Newsweek
International |
Sept. 26 - Oct. 3, 2005 issue - The ruins of Matera in Italy's southern region of Basilicata are a grim reminder of how desperate life has been for the region's poor. Generations of families once lived here in squalid, windowless caves cut out of the steep ravines, often sleeping alongside their pigs, chickens and goats. Malaria was rampant and few babies survived to see their first birthday. Finally, in 1960, a public outcry across Europe prompted the Italian government to evacuate the entire impoverished population of 15,000 up the hill to government housing. Now the area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and many of the abandoned caves are being transformed into tony wine bars and four-star hotels for curious tourists. Mel Gibson even filmed a segment of "The Passion" here—fittingly, the gruesome Crucifixion scene.
Matera and other picturesque southern Italian villages may be enjoying
a relative renaissance, thanks to tourism. And Italy itself has become
Europe's fourth largest economy, with dynamic growth over the past
decades despite recent years of sporadic recession. Yet life in the old
Mezzogiorno remains as tough as it's always been—if not
worse.
Instead of catching up with the rest of Italy, the region seems to be
falling farther and farther behind.
According to two studies released last month, southern Italy, if it
were independent, would be the poorest of the EU's 25 members in terms
of per capita national income. Many residents cannot afford adequate
housing and such basic utilities as hot water and central heating.
Infant mortality in the first 28 days of life is 5.7 per
—1,000
live births—four times higher than in the northern provinces
and
double the European median. The dropout rate for primary-school
students—through grade eight—is 24 percent, 2.5
times
higher than the rest of Europe. Says Maurizio Bonati of the Mother and
Child Health Laboratory at Mario Negri Institute in Milan, coauthor of
one of the studies: "We're talking about people who cannot buy simple
groceries, who cannot buy milk for their children, who cannot find
nourishment when they are pregnant." The second study, by Giorgio
Tamburlini of the Institute for Child Health Burlo Garofaloin Trieste,
found that 17 percent of children and adolescents in southern Italy
suffer from mental-health problems including depression, suicide and
eating disorders like anorexia—all disproportionate side
effects
of Italy's enduring north-south income divide.
What's remarkable is how little impact 40 years of government aid and
investment have had. For decades, the richer Italian provinces in the
north have complained—often to the point of demanding
separation—that taxes paid to the government in Rome are
siphoned
by the poor south. To be sure, there are some successes: government
investment in agriculture has made Puglia the largest provider of pasta
for Europe. Calabria has become one of Europe's major suppliers of
citrus fruit. In Campania, investment in tourism has transformed the
Amalfi coast into a top tourism destination, while Naples is slowly
being remade into a clean and safe city. Yet the overall picture
remains grim: 7.3 million residents in southern Italy still make less
than 521 euro a month, and half of those live on less than 435 euro a
month, according to ISTAT, Italy's national statistics institute.
"There are hotels in the south that can demand 500 euro a night, and
families live on less than that just a few kilometers away," laments
Francesco Loporfido, who owns the Andrisani Enoteca, tucked inside a
Matera cave.
Part of the problem is how resources have been allocated. In 2000 the
government earmarked $50 billion in EU funds and matching national
funds for Mezzogiorno development through the year 2006, much of which
was meant for health-care reform and infrastructure enhancements. But
under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, more than half those funds have
gone to Campania for urban revitalization in Naples and development
along the already rich Amalfi coast. Recently the government allocated
300 million euro for broadband infrastructure, despite the fact that
only a slender fraction of southern Italians can afford computers. It
has spent millions in studying whether to build a 4.6 billion euro
bridge from Sicily to the mainland. As for social services, reports the
Mother and Child Health Laboratory study: "Not a single program for
maternal and pediatric intervention exists in Italy right now." Many
southern hospitals suffer from shortages of doctors, nurses and medical
supplies. Scores of public buildings have been declared unsafe.
Why hasn't northern Italy's wealth trickled south? The reasons are
many, ranging from the mafia's control of many southern businesses to
the unusually large share (an estimated 30 to 40 percent) of the local
economy that operates in the black—the black market, that is.
Money made on the side, whether by day labor or crime, does not flow
into taxes, which in turn impoverishes municipal governments. More
fundamentally, Italy's economic good times never touched the south.
Prosperous northern businesses invested in plants in their own region;
service industries operate where the money and markets are—in
the
north. It has been the same story with foreign investment, except for
the relatively modest amounts of EU aid. All this is compounded by low
health and literary rates. With 24 percent of primary students
abandoning school, unemployment hovers between 30 and 50 percent and
shows little prospect of improving. Perhaps worst, long years of
inequity have all but stifled the will to change. The perception is
that southern Italy will always be as it is, says Bonati. "Especially
in the south, people feel that it's their destiny to be poor."
The prognosis is not good. The latest studies are full of
well-intentioned recommendations for change, from improving local
health services with mobile clinics and tougher regulation to greater
emphasis on prenatal and childhood medical assistance. There's also
brave talk about ways of narrowing the north-south income divide:
measures to force black-market jobs into the mainstream, bolstering tax
revenues and adopting initiatives to ensure that parents keep their
kids in school. None of this is likely to amount to much, however,
without a commitment from Italy's federal government to invest
economically in the south—and offer incentives for northern
businesses to do the same. Without that, the region's chief potential
resource—its low-cost, underemployed labor
pool—will remain
untapped. And its people might as well be living in caves.
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