Italy is aging more and more: this is the alarm sounded by Istat to Parliament. By 2051, people will retire at 70, and the OECD has already warned that by that time, retirees will outnumber workers. Essentially, the pension and welfare systems will be unsustainable, leading to lower productivity.
Speaking of growth, Bankitalia has dampened the government’s mood by revising down its GDP growth forecast to just 0.8 percent annually. Bankitalia has also raised concerns about the sustainability of the pension system. In short, you don’t need a Nobel Prize in economics to understand that while we live longer thanks to medical technologies, we are having fewer children, and declining birth rates are one of the factors stunting growth.
Then there are the contextual issues: geopolitics, energy, raw materials, and the new dynamics of global markets. Just consider the damage caused to our foreign trade by Germany’s economic crisis. We are not alone in the world—not so much due to the UFO debate, but because the world is now an interconnected web, from finance to technology to communication. So, what should be done?
Right now, the government needs to find funds for its budget, but soon it will have to address these issues with a comprehensive vision for the future. Can regular migration be a resource? Yes. Should family policies be strengthened? Yes. Then there are taxes to reduce, incentives to increase, especially for the green transition. A certain Mr. Draghi spoke of the need for funds equal to two Marshall Plans—otherwise, we risk becoming irrelevant. And not just us Italians.
