POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN RURAL AREAS

Transcription

1 European Commission POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN RURAL AREAS Final Report Annex I Country Studies country: authors: Paola Bertolini, Elena Pisano, Silvia Sivini and Sara Scaramuzzi

2 Contents Executive Summary Overview Main characteristics of rurality Main characteristics of rural poverty Rural poverty and policies Poverty and groups at risk: case studies on significant groups at risk Conclusions References Annex EXAMPLE OF GOOD PRACTICES This study is supported for under the European Community action programme to encourage cooperation between Member States to combat social exclusion ( ). This programme is managed by the Directorate-General for Employment, social affairs and equal opportunities of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission may be held responsible for the use that may be made of the information contained in this publication. Contractor: Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini Contact person: Marilena Sacchetta Authors of the Final Study: Paola Bertolini, Marco Montanari, Vito Peragine. National Corrispondents: Lilia Abadjieva (Bulgaria), Luc Behaghel (France), Paola Bertolini (Italy), Nikolaos Bouzas (Greece), Ruta Braziene (Lithuania), Patrick Commins (Ireland), Philomena De Lima (UK), Oana Gherghinescu (Romania), Elvira Gonzalez (Spain), Florindo Ramos (Portugal), Karen Refsgaard (Norway), Mateja Sedmak, Blaz Lenarcic (Slovenia), Elzbieta Tarkowska (Poland), Achim Vanselow, Claudia Weinkopf, Thorsten Kalina (Germany), Gabriella Vukovich (Hungary). Scientific Committee: Philomena De Lima, Marcello Gorgoni, Sabrina Lucatelli, Enzo Mingione, Karen Refsgaard, Annamaria Simonazzi, Francesca Utili European Communities, 2008 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. 198

3 Executive Summary In Italy rural areas have followed highly differentiated paths resulting in many kinds of rurality: the great variety of social conditions has had implications on the quality of life, which ranges from rural paradises (like in Tuscany) to very disadvantaged areas. There is no single official definition of rural areas at the national level. Much discussed in the literature, a definition of rural areas does in fact appear in official documents in the National Strategic Plan for Rural Development and the Regional Plan for Rural Development but it finds no place in the programming documents regarding social inclusion policies. The Italian Report on Strategies for Social Protection and Social Inclusion makes no reference to rural areas, nor is any action contemplated for such areas. The indicators taken into consideration to measure levels of poverty apply at the regional level (NUTS 2), and the only territorial differentiation observed is the gap between North and South Italy. The Italian Statistical Institute (ISTAT) does not distinguish between rural and urban poverty. The most significant cleavage as regards the risk of poverty is found to be between Northern and Southern regions; this is confirmed by various indicators of deprivation, such as the general conditions of housing or access to services (hospitals, nursery). With regard to the labour market, rural areas appear to perform worse than urban ones according to many indicators (such as the employment rate, youth unemployment ratio and long-term unemployment). Concerning socioeconomic features of rural households, housing conditions and demographic indicators do not display any significant difference between rural and urban areas. In Italy, the devolution of many tasks to regional authorities implied a decentralised management of community programmes for rural areas, with a consequent significant fragmentation and a regional diversification of policy strategies. Concerning the evaluation of the past experience, the high fragmentation of rural policy has pointed out several shortcomings for the Italian programming system, in terms of: 1) national co-ordination; 2) weaknesses in regional bargaining power; 3) lack of coordination among different programmes, particularly in the case of Objective 1 regions. Most of the rural development policies still keep a marked sectoral connotation, and they hardly toil to become transversal and territorial based policies. Most of the interventions in rural areas are incentives for farms, while other important actors such as wage agricultural workers - more exposed to the risk of poverty than farm households - have marginally benefited from these policies. With regard to specific risks of poverty and social exclusion, three main features characterise rural areas in Italy: aging population, difficulties in accessing services, and gender inequalities in entering the labour market. The elderly are becoming a dominant feature of the population, especially in more remote rural areas. Problems in access to services are the other common feature of more peripheral rural areas. Concentration of the main services in urban location can impact on the quality of life of groups already at risk of social exclusion: health services for elderly or disabled, child care facilities for female workers. The accessibility of schools is another important question for pupils. Lack of opportunities of jobs and career, that is particularly severe for women and young people, often compels to choose between migrating or remaining unemployed/underemployed. 199

4 1. Overview In Italy rural areas have followed highly differentiated paths resulting in many kinds of ruralities: the great variety of social conditions has had implications on the quality of life, which ranges from rural paradises (like in Tuscany) to very difficult areas. Italy shares with other developed countries three main features that characterise rural areas: aging population, difficulties in accessing services, and gender inequalities in entering the labour market. The elderly are becoming a dominant feature of the population, especially in more remote rural areas. Lack of opportunities of jobs and career, that is particularly severe for women and young people, often compels to choose between migrating or remaining unemployed / underemployed. Problems in access to services is the other common feature of more peripheral rural areas: concentration of the main services in urban location can impact on the quality of life of groups already at risk of social exclusion: health services for elderly or disabled, child care facilities for female workers. The general features of the economic and social systems can also affect the characteristics of the rural areas: it is the case for instance of the black economy, which permeates large segments of the Italian economy and results in high rates of underground labour, in both urban and rural areas, affecting especially, though not exclusively, immigrants. The most significant cleavage as regards the risk of poverty is between Northern and Southern regions; this is confirmed by various indicators of deprivation, such as the general conditions of housing or access to services (hospitals, nursery). All these aspects influence also household s perception of poverty, which is higher in Southern Italy than in the other parts of the country. 200

5 2. The definition of rural areas in Italy There is no single official definition of rural areas at the national level. Much discussed in the literature, a definition of rural areas does in fact appear in official documents in the National Strategic Plan for Rural Development and the Regional Plan for Rural Development but it finds no place in the programmatic documents regarding social inclusion policies. In particular, the National Strategic Plan for Rural Development (NSP) distinguishes between four macro-typologies of areas: a) Urban conglomerations; b) Intensively farmed rural areas; c) Intermediate rural areas; d) Rural areas with general development problems. These areas were identified with some modification of the OECD methodology for the classification of areas in urban and rural contexts, which did not allow for sufficient differentiation within the provinces. In Italy the provinces generally show significant differences across the country. (See Figure 1). The NSP does, however, provide the possibility for every Region (NUTS 2 level) to adopt within the Regional Development Plan (RDP) a further level of area subdivision using additional indicators in order to identify the typologies most appropriate to the particular conditions in the regions. The RDPs are now being drawn up and, generally speaking, the technical-administrative drafts are available, although subject to further modification; for the time being, therefore, there is no knowing which of the Regions will use additional indicators. Figure 1. Italy s rural areas Urban Conglomeration Intensively farmed rural areas Intermediate rural areas Rural areas with general development probl problems Source: RDP The methodology followed in classification of rural areas in the context of the NSP basically consists of 5 stages: 1. selection is made of the major provincial centres of over 150 inhabitants/sq. km. This group of municipalities represents the strictly defined urban areas at the national level, and was excluded from the subsequent processing. 2. the OECD methodology was applied to the remaining communes (municipalities), distinguishing between the areas prevalently urban (population rural communes < 15% total population), significantly rural (popu- 201

6 lation rural communes > 15% and < 50% total population) and prevalently rural (population rural communes > 50% total population), not at the provincial level (OECD methodology), but making distinction among the communes within each province according to altimetric area and calculating, for each of the three types (plain, hill and mountain), the incidence of communes classified as rural in the total population. 3. the prevalently urban category was disaggregated in two groups since it shows marked differentiation between the group of communes more closely resembling provincial capitals (for example, communes outlying major Italian cities and/or certain coastal communes showing marked urban development) and the group of densely populated communes characterised by profuse, intensive farming (such as the plain lands of northern Italy). To distinguish between these two groups, reclassification was made within the prevalently urban areas on the basis of density (150 inhabitants/sq. km.) and the proportion of total farm area in the territory. Thus were identified all the communes that could be defined as urbanised rural, characterised by high population density but also a considerable proportion of agriculture (over 2/3 of the total area). Finally, again applying analysis at the level of altimetric area, a further area category was obtained, defined as highly urbanised rural, in that the rural communes are proportionately significant (over 15% total pop.) and the urbanised rural a prevalent share (over 50% of the rural pop.). 4. Crossing the revised OECD areas with the three altimetric categories and the three major divisions of Italy (North, Centre and South) 36 area types were obtained (plus one for provincial capitals). 5. In order to obtain a broader classification serving to identify priorities for rural development policies across the country, the areas had to be re-aggregated. Thus four macro-typologies were distinguished (Urban conglomerations; Intensively farmed rural areas; Intermediate rural areas; Rural areas with general development problems). For this last stage the following procedure was applied: - verification of the classification obtained on the basis of the OECD for altimetric area with the Regions and Autonomous Provinces; - aggregation, on the basis of further facts and figures supplied essentially by the Regions and Autonomous Provinces, of the individual areas within the four macro-areas. There is no common technical definition of rural areas: indeed, the concept of what is rural has taken on different nuances and meanings over time with progressive changes in the country s social and economic situation. By and large it is recognised that the various processes of transformation of the economic and socio-cultural structure of the rural areas have called for revision of the concept of rural, the rural area no longer being identified solely as farmland (Brunori 1994, Distaso 1995), while the essentially bipolar (urban-rural) approach can no longer be considered satisfactory. Nowadays, the tendency in defining is to take a multidimensional approach, involving the adoption of a set of economic and social indicators. Relevant here is the recent study by Anania and Tenuta (2006), proposing a model for the classification of rural areas (See Figure 2) consisting of three stages: 1. for each Italian commune a rurality/urbanity index was estimated on the basis of six variables 1 descriptive of a distinctive aspect of what it means for an area to be urban or rural; 2. on the basis of five variables an indicator was constructed at the commune level of the per capita rate of income and consumption 2 ; 3. the Italian communes were analysed taking the two indicators jointly into account 3. It can be seen from the literature just how difficult it is to hit on a univocal definition of what exactly is rural, in part also because in rural areas development processes have followed highly differentiated paths at the territorial and organisational level. The Italian Report on Strategies for Social Protection and Social Inclusion makes no reference to rural areas, nor is any action contemplated for such areas. The indicators taken into consideration to measure levels of poverty apply at the regional level (NUTS 2), and the only territorial differentiation observed is the gap between North and South Italy. As already seen with NAP inclusion monitoring, the regional gap is one of the most critical stumbling blocks in the field of social inclusion processes at the Italian countrywide level. As we have seen, poverty, unemployment and shortcomings in services favouring inclusion of the weaker brackets are concentrated mainly in the southern part of the country. At the same time, the strategy adopted to promote inclusion fails to take account of the degree of rurality of an area, which represents a serious limitation to the Italian Plan. Again, the Italian Plan for Innovation, Growth and Employment (PICO), drawn up to relaunch the Lisbon Strategy in 2005, makes reference to territorial disparity at the regional level, indicating in Italy s South the area where 202

7 Figure 2. Distribution of Italian communes on the basis of the degree of rurality/urbanity Source: Anania and Tenuta (2006). action is needed to close the gap, but offers no definition of rural area, nor does it provide for any specific intervention in such areas. Notes 1 The six variables are: demographic density (number of inhabitants / surface area of the commune in sq. km., 2004; Ancitel); proportion of the population active in agriculture (resident population active in agriculture / resident population over the age of 14, 2001; ISTAT, Census of Population and Dwellings); proportion of the population active in the sector of public services (resident population active in Public Administration / resident population over the age of 14, 2001; ISTAT, Census of Population and Dwellings); urbanisation of the area (urban surface area in sq. km / total area in sq. km, 2001; Ancitel/Ministry for Internal Affairs; ISTAT, Census of Population and Dwellings); dispersion of the population (population resident in scattered units1 / resident population, 2001; ISTAT, Census of Population and Dwellings); availability of living space (surface in sq. metres of the dwellings occupied by residents / resident population, 2001; Ancitel; ISTAT, Census of Population and Dwellings). (Anania and Tenuta, 2007). 2 The five variables are: female employment in non-agricultural activities (resident female population active in the non-agricultural sectors / resident female population over the age of 14, 2001; ISTAT, Census of Population and Dwellings); rate of unemployment (active population not employed / workforce, 2001; ISTAT, Census of Population and Dwellings); cars with powerful engines registered (cars registered with capacity over 2000 cc belonging to residents per thousand inhabitants, 2005; Ancitel/ACI); electric energy consumption consumer (electric energy consumption for family and general purposes (kwh) / consumers, 1999; Ancitel/ENEL and Municipalised Companies); per capita income with respect to IRPEF (income assessable for income tax purposes (Euros) / resident population, 2002; Ancitel). 3 A further interesting (non administrative) territorial classification, mainly related to the commuting phenomenon, is represented by the Local Labour Systems (ISTAT,2001). It maps regions basing on daily commuting (for work reasons only) towards a gravitational centre in each geographical area. A LLS is defined as an area in which almost 75% of the labour demand matches supply in the same region. Although it groups municipalities in greater territorial units basing on a social and economic criterion (it distinguishes regions on different typologies of economic activities), it does not catch rural dimension. 203

8 3. Main characteristics of rural poverty in Ireland 3.1 Measurement of poverty in Italy In statistical formulations the condition of poverty is typically defined by counting the numbers of families or individuals that have economic resources below a certain threshold, making reference to an absolute or relative living standard. In the case of absolute poverty the threshold is defined in terms of the possibility to consume a certain basket of goods. Between 1997 and 2002 ISTAT (the Italian Statistical Institute) assessed absolute poverty on the basis of a socially acceptable standard determined in monetary terms and annually updated referring to the general index of consumer prices. For the time being, pending revision of the basket, it has suspended survey in this area. At the EU level there are at present no projects to obtain comparable measurements of absolute poverty (Rapporto di Monitoraggio del Piano d Azione Nazionale per l Inclusione Sociale , 2005). In the case of relative poverty the threshold is given by the average or median of families consumption expenditure or disposable incomes. Thus the threshold represents the prevalent living standard of the population at a certain moment. Variation can occur not only in the variable measured (consumption or incomes) and the selected statistical index (average or median), but also in the level of the threshold (e.g., 50% or 60% of the average or median) and the equivalence scale. In any case, behind the reference to consumer spending and/or incomes there is the assumption that prices faced by families do not change according to conditions of the family (or prevailing in the area). Naturally, the choice of how to calculate the threshold leads to various different results, as can be seen in the case of Italy. The official ISTAT definition makes reference to consumer spending: a two-person family whose consumption expenditure is below the national per capita average is defined as poor 4. In 2006, the last year for which data are available, the relative poverty threshold for a two-person family calculated on the basis of family spending ascertained with the annual consumption survey[3] 5 stood at 970,34 euros per month (+3,6 % than 2005 poverty line). For families of different sizes the poverty threshold is obtained applying an equivalence scale known as Carbonaro scale which takes account of the economies of scale that can be achieved with increase in the number of components of the family 6. The National Plan of Action for Social Inclusion Monitoring Report points out that the EU poverty indicator is rather different from the Italian indicator, since: it is based on incomes instead of consumption (implying conceptual differences and different problems in statistical measurement); it uses a different equivalence scale, known as the modified OECD scale, which, unlike the Carbonaro scale, differentiates the weights according to the age of the members of the household, but without any reduction in the weight with increasing size of the household (1 to the first adult, 0.5 to the others, 0.3 to children under 14); it uses a different system to calculate the threshold, placing it at 60% of the median of equivalent family incomes and not 60% of the mean per capita consumption (for a one-person family) as it is the case with the national methodology. Table 1. National versus EU poverty definition National EU Variable Consumption Income Poverty threshold 60% Per-capita average 60% equivalence median Equivalence scale Carbonaro Modified OCSE Value in % (11.1 households) 19% Given these differences, in order to implement the EU definitions of poverty the National Plan of Action for Social Inclusion Monitoring Report takes reference from an alternative source, updated as to 2002, namely the Survey of Italian family budgets carried out by the Bank of Italy. The survey is conducted every two years and gath- 204

9 ers information on household microeconomic behaviour, social and demographic characteristics of household members, their incomes and consumption expenditure (since 1980). Estimates of households tangible assets are also available but they are not regular. The sample size is about 8,000 families (24,000 persons), with responses collected in personal interviews; participation is voluntary and not remunerated and, as a result, non-response is high. A quick look at the poverty figures shows that Italy is definitely split in two parts: in fact, poverty appears to be a serious issue mainly in the South (Mezzogiorno). This is the reason why a regional mainstreaming approach in spite of a urban-rural decomposition has been adopted for all the indicators: the national poverty statistics, in fact, make no distinction between urban and rural areas but take account of territorial differences at the NUTS 2 regional level and by macro-areas (North, Centre, South) (Figure 4, 5 and Table 2). As already mentioned, poverty in Italy shows a striking territorial characterization: in the North and Centre, in 2006, 5,2% and 6,99% of the families respectively proved poor, while the figure soared to 22,6% in the South. The larger diffusion of poverty in the south is coupled with a deeper severity in the intensity 7 (22.5% in spite of 17.8% and 16.9% in the North and in the Centre respectively) (Figure3). Figure 3. Poverty intensity by geographical area North Centre South Italy Source: ISTAT (2007), La povertà relativa in Italia nel Taking the overall figures, no fewer than 70% of the poor families in Italy live in the South: poverty incidence is generally higher than national average in the whole South. The situation being particularly serious in Calabria (increased from 23,3 in 2005 to 27,8 in 2006) and in Sicily (even if it decreased from 2005 to 2006, it remains the region with the highest poverty incidence, 28,9 %) (Table2). Figure 4. Incidence of relative poverty of families (national definition based on consumption) by regions, 2003 g, Source: ISTAT (2004), La povertà relativa in Italia nel

10 Table 2. Relative poverty incidence, sampling error and confidence interval by regions and geographical area (as percentage) Incidence (%) Error (%) Confidence interval Incidence (%) Error (%) Confidence interval Lower Upper Lower Upper bound bound bound bound ,1 2,56 10,5 11,7 Piemonte ,4 13,0 4,8 8,0 Valle d Aosta ,5 17,4 5,6 11,4 Lombardia ,7 12,8 3,5 5,9 Trentino-Alto Adige ,2 13,5 4,6 7,8 Trento ,3 21,7 3,0 7,6 Bolzano ,1 17,0 4,7 9,5 Veneto ,0 14,0 3,6 6,4 Friuli-Venezia ,2 10,9 6,4 10,0 Liguria ,1 14,0 4,4 7,8 Emilia-Romagna ,9 23,5 2,1 5,7 NORTH ,2 6,2 4,6 5,8 Toscana ,8 12,2 5,2 8,4 Umbria ,3 14,7 5,2 9,4 Marche ,9 14,9 4,2 7,6 Lazio ,0 11,8 5,4 8,6 CENTRE ,9 7,2 5,9 7,9 Abruzzo ,2 14,6 8,7 15,7 Molise ,6 8,9 15,3 21,9 Campania ,2 7,5 18,1 24,3 Puglia ,8 7,6 16,8 22,8 Basilicata ,0 9,2 18,9 27,1 Calabria ,8 7,5 23,7 31,9 Sicilia ,9 4,8 26,2 31,6 Sardegna ,9 8,5 14,1 19,7 SOUTH ,6 3,0 21,3 23,9 Source: ISTAT (2007), La povertà relativa in Italia nel Figure 5. Relative poverty incidence by year and geographical area (as percentage). Source: ISTAT (2007), La povertà relativa in Italia nel

11 Figure 6. Incidence of relative poverty of families (national definition based on consumption) by macroareas, (percentage values) Italy North Centre South Source: ISTAT (2004), La povertà relativa in Italia nel In an overall perspective, families living in conditions of relative poverty in 2006 were, according to ISTAT, 2 million 623 thousand, accounting for 11.1% of the families resident in Italy. The value that would be obtained observing the entire population comes, with a 95% probability, between 10.5% and 11.7%. The methodological differences between the national and the EU indicators mentioned above entail appreciable variations in assessments of the phenomenon. Over the period , the population on low incomes according to the EU definition ranges between 20 and 21%, the population judged poor according to the national definition between 12 and 14% 8 (National Plan of Action for Social Inclusion Monitoring Report , 2005). The downward trend of poverty indicated by consumption data as from 2000 does not emerge on assessing incomes, the population on low incomes having remained fairly constant between 2000 and 2002, at around 20% 9. However, with the exception of the elderly, a similar territorial distribution of poverty is observed, with concentration confirmed in the South of Italy. (Table 3 10 ). Table 3. Incidence of population on low incomes (poverty risk according to the EU definition) by sex, age class and area distribution: 1998, 2000 and 2002 (percentage values) Source: National Plan of Action for Social Inclusion Monitoring on Bank of Italy microdata, Survey on Italian family budgets Finally, over a third of the low-income population (Figure7) comes close to the standard threshold, which stood at euros in However, about 8% of the overall population comes under 40% of the standard threshold, with an equivalent family income of less than 5,400 euros. The essential stability of the low-income population between 2000 and 2002 emerges with various threshold levels. 207

12 Figure 7. Dispersion of low-income population (poverty risk according to EU definition) around the base threshold (40%, 50% and 70% of the median equivalent income available; base threshold at 60%. 1998, 2000 and 2002 Source: National Plan of Action for Social Inclusion Monitoring on Bank of Italy microdata. Survey on Italian family budgets This stability is due to the fact that median income increased in real terms throughout the period observed, unlike the median consumption, which showed a negative real growth rate between 2000 and If the threshold identifying the low-income population had grown from 1998 to 2002 at the same rate as inflation, a reduction would also have been observed in the number of persons risking poverty taking incomes into consideration, and the divergences from the ISTAT indicator trend would have lessened appreciably (Figure8). A similar poverty classification has been developed by ISTAT in order to analyse distribution of population around the poverty line. This classification recognizes families on the basis of 4 typologies, with reference to the conventional threshold: 1. families decidedly not poor, showing levels of consumer spending exceeding the standard value line by at least 20%; 2. families almost poor, with monthly expenditure is over the 10% the standard line. 3. families barely poor, with expenditure falling below the standard line by no more than 20%; 4. decidedly poor families, with expenditure coming below 20% of the standard line. Figure 8. Incidence of the low-income population (poverty risk according to EU definition) calculated with threshold fixed at 1998 and adjusted for inflation. 1998, 2000 e 2002 Figure 9. Distribution of population around the poverty line. (percentage values) Year effective poverty risk risk of poverty with adjusted threshold Source: National Plan of Action for Social Inclusion Monitoring on Bank of Italy microdata. Survey on Italian family budgets. Source: ISTAT (2007), La povertà relativa in Italia nel

13 In 2006, 1 million and 142 thousand of families (about 4,8% of total number of families resident in Italy) fall in the last category. Three quarters of them live in the Mezzogiorno. The 11,1% of families accrues instead to the almost poor category, while people which is not poor but is at risk to fall under the poverty line represents 8,1% of the all families (this share reaches 17% in the South. The decidedly not poor families account for 80,8% of the total but vary between 89,6% in the North, 86,1% in the Centre and 64,2% in the South Rural poverty in Italy As mentioned in the previous section, the Italian Statistical Institute (ISTAT) does not distinguish between rural and urban poverty, since poverty has a regional feature rather than a marked rural-urban connotation 11. In particular, as seen in the descriptive analysis of poverty in Italy, it has a striking North-South dimension, irrespective of the urban or rural location. Together with the lack of data, this is the main reason why few studies in academic literature have been conducted in this field in Italy. However, Bank of Italy SHIW (Survey of Household Incomes and Wealth) provides some information on these features allowing for a distinction between rural and urban households. Two definitions of agricultural household can be found in literature: the narrower one defines as agricultural the households whose reference person draws most of its income from independent agricultural activity (net of capital consumption); the broad one allows a household to be agricultural if it just receives some income from agricultural independent activities no matter if accruing to household head or other family s member, both definitions referring to self-employed traditional farm household 12 (OECD, 2003). However a minor, but still noteworthy group beyond the farm households is represented by wage dependent workers in the agricultural sector 13 and rural non agricultural workers 14 (Table 4). Table 4. Households and individuals by household type. Source: Salvioni and Colazilli, The only outstanding reference on distribution and poverty among rural household in Italy is given by Salvioni and Colazilli (2005). Basing on SHIW four waves (1995, 1998, 2000, 2002), they find, surprisingly, farm households being better off than average Italian households, having equivalent income and consumption 15 levels in line with those of self-employed non agricultural households though more variable, due to seasonality unpredictable weather-related risk strictly linked to agricultural activity 16 ) and wealth substantially higher than the average household 17 (probably due to ownership of physical assets such as land etc ) and than the general self-employed household. Moreover they have a lower consumption-income ratio hence a saving rate higher than the rest of households. On the opposite, as expected, agricultural dependent workers are found to be the most disadvantaged group relative the others 18 (Figure 10). The analysis of poverty shows instead a similar poverty incidence among various types of rural households (except for agricultural dependent households), with an increasing trend all over the period. In particular, farm households have a poverty incidence substantially higher than the Italian average household. There is moreover a clear connection with the trend of income levels: the jump in poverty rate 19 in 2000 (reaching the 23.4) is rather consistent with the decline in income levels (due to the bad weather which has affected the agricultural production). Agricultural dependent workers are found again the more vulnerable group, with a poverty rate twice as high as the rest of the households (Figure 11), while rural non agricultural households experience a lower and further decreasing poverty rate. 209

14 Figure 10. Equivalent income, consumption and wealth by family type. Source: Salvioni and Colazilli, Figure 11. Poverty incidence among households. Source: Salvioni and Colazilli, Concerning the poverty intensity 20, evidence shows a wide variation along the period considered, with a convergence trend in consumption and income based poverty gaps. Figure 12. Poverty gap by type of households Source: Salvioni and Colazilli,

15 It has be noticed, however, the great role of wealth in farm households in softening shocks on income in order to achieve consumption smoothing. Following the joint distribution of wealth and income 21, it can be seen that the share of farm households poor both in terms of income and wealth is relatively lower than the one based on income only, supporting the idea that just a very small portion of farm households does not have wealth enough to contrast the effects of a loss of income and to sustain consumption (Salvioni, Colazilli, 2005). Figure 13. Farm households joint income-wealth distribution Source: Salvioni and Colazilli, This last remark seems to suggest that the traditional farm problem has been partially overcome; however, evidence on wage agricultural work households shows that the low income issue is still alive in some agricultural regions, especially in the south, where it is often associated with underdevelopment and social exclusion problems. In addition to this evidence, the increasing importance of the exploitation of seasonal irregular immigrant workers makes the situation of farm labourers even worse Multidimensional analysis of poverty and social exclusion in Italy Although at EU level the most frequently used common indicators in the field of poverty and social exclusion are based on a monetary approach (which is relative), since the last decade the focus has moved toward an idea of multidimensionality of poverty (Eurispes, 2005). Other individual resources matter in determining individual living condition (e.g. assets/debts, previous labour positions or non-cash transfers) 22, supporting the idea that income is not sufficient in itself to represent an individual or household poverty condition. In this case, the joint analysis of relative income poverty measures and deprivation indicators can be useful. The debate, often related to survey and studies carried out with different approaches and in different geographical areas of the country, has underlined a set of possible aspects related to a condition of deprivation as: a) lack of essential basic goods; b) the lack of basic structures and services (housing, hot water, heating, healthcare); c) lack of education and skills (which are crucial to cope with the changing labour market conditions). The intensity of deprivation allows identifying different typologies of poverty, depending on the degree and the number of lacking items related to the different dimensions. Following the work of Amartya Sen (1980, 1985) a concept of capability is emerging, according to which poverty is linked not only to individual characteristics but, rejecting the ethical individualism principle, also to the environment where a person lives as it is related to the possibility in an effective or potential accomplishing of functionings that are expression of a positive idea of freedom 23. In order to follow a multidimensional approach, without providing a synthetic measure of deprivation, a set of overarching indicators has been proposed to assess the various dimensions of poverty according the NUTS regions OECD and DG REGIO classification of rural/urban areas 24 : 1. Employment rate (M/F) Youth unemployment ratio (15-24) 211

16 3. Employment rate 55/64 4. Long term unemployment rate 5. Housing quality 6. Life expectancy at birth 7. Demographic labour pressure: 15/24 as a share of 55/64 8. Adult (25-64) with low education 9. Education of head of household 10.Households composition (more generations families) We can group them in two sets: labour market conditions and socio-demographic features. Labour market indicators Table 5. Indicator 1: Employment rate (15-64 y.o.) NUTS OECD classification. PR IN PU COUNTRY Total Male Female Table 6. Indicator 1: Employment rate (15-64 y.o.) - Total - NUTS DG Regio classification PR_R PR_C IR_R IR_C PU COUNTRY Total Starting with the labour market indicators, by observing the employment rate by regions type, a clear division between urban and rural areas emerges: as it can be noticed, in fact, the employment rate increases with the degree of urbanity, the rural regions employment rate being rather low compared to the country average, and nearly 6 percentage points below the employment rate in predominantly urban areas. However, according to the DG Regio decomposition, it can be noticed that the harshest problems in employment and youth unemployment (Table 7- Indicator 2) are concentrated in intermediate rural remote regions (41.4% in youth unemployment rate) and in predominantly rural remote regions, meaning that remoteness from main cities matters in terms of economic attainments more than rurality. Looking at the gender desegregation then, the female employment rate is significantly low at country level (it is one of the lowest in Europe) and even worse in predominantly rural regions, where it is found to be substantially lower (more than 25%) than the male figure (higher than the country level). Table 7. Indicator 2: Youth unemployment ratio (% labour force y.o) - Total - NUTS OECD classification PR IN PU COUNTRY Total Male Female Table 8. Indicator 2: Youth unemployment rate (% labour force y.o) - Total - NUTS DG Regio classification PR_R PR_C IR_R IR_C PU COUNTRY Italy

17 As already mentioned, a similar pattern can be observed looking at youth unemployment rate: the rate in rural regions is 6 points above the country average and one third higher than in urban regions; moreover, the phenomenon is amplified considering the female rate of unemployment. Thus, both the employment and unemployment rate (youth and global) seems to reflect a gender effect, probably related also to a social and cultural rural environment where the traditional separation of roles still survives 25. Moreover, the higher reported unemployment might be partly due to a higher rate of informal (undeclared) employment or underemployment in rural areas, a serious issue in the South, concerning particularly seasonal agricultural dependant workers. Table 9. Indicator 3. Employment rate (%) of older workers (55-64 y.o.) - NUTS2 level OECD classification PR IN PU COUNTRY Total Table 10. Indicator 4. Long-term unemployment rate (as a % of total unemployment rate) - NUTS2 level OECD classification PR IN PU COUNTRY Total As for global unemployment, the long term unemployment rate is higher in predominantly rural regions signalling a persistence feature of unemployment in these regions; however, the employment rate among older workers is slightly higher than the country average and than in urban areas. Socio-demographic features 26 Table 11. Indicator 5. Housing quality: % of occupied dwellings with heating and drinkable water - NUTS OECD classification PR IN PU COUNTRY Heating Drinkable water Table 12. Indicator 6. Life expectancy at birth (number of years) - Male - NUTS OECD classification PR IN PU COUNTRY Total Concerning socio-economic features of rural households, housing conditions and demographic indicators do not display any significant difference among region typologies. This seems to suggest that living standards are rather similar among rural and urban dwellings and that traditional problem of rural/farm poverty in terms of deprivation seems to be overcome (Salvioni, Colazilli, 2005). In line with what expected, life expectancy is higher in the predominantly rural areas than in urban areas due to the better quality of environment and life while surprisingly, figures on the share of two-ormore families households do not suggest significant differences in the family structure between rural and urban regions. Table 13. Indicator 7. Demographic labour pressure: ratio of people aged to people aged NUTS OECD classification PR IN PU COUNTRY Total

18 Table 14. Indicator 7. Demographic labour pressure: ratio of people aged to people aged NUTS DG Regio classification PR_R PR_C IR_R IR_C PU COUNTRY Total The demographic labour pressure denotes, in Italy, a lower share of people who are going to enter the labour market then those who are going to retire. This phenomenon is less acute in rural regions in which people aged are a larger share of the population. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that a large share of young people tends to move from rural areas after schooling age, thus probably after the spell. Table 15. Indicator 8. % of adults (25-64 year old) with low educational attainment (ISCED 0-2) - NUTS OECD classification PR IR PU COUNTRY Total Table 16. Indicator 10. Two or more family households (as a % of total number of private households) - NUTS3 level OECD classification PR IR PU COUNTRY Total Table 17. Indicator 10. Two or more family households (as a % of total number of private households) - NUTS3 level DG Regio PR_R PR_C IR_R IR_C PU COUNTRY Italy However, the higher rate of adult poor educational attainment in intermediate and especially in predominantly rural regions seems rather indicating a more serious risk of underdevelopment and social exclusion in these areas which could further encourage out migration of young people along a vicious circle of progressive cultural and social impoverishment and isolation. Other indicators Finally, few other indicators can be observed in order to assess the rural poverty and social exclusion. Among these, population change shows a substantially lower - though still positive - increase in the population living in rural areas compared to the urban increase. Table 18. Population change NUTS3 (%) PR IR PU COUNTRY Total Table 19. Private households with more than 5 members (% of total private households) - NUTS PR IR PU COUNTRY Total Table 20. % of farm holders with other gainful activities - District level PR IR PU COUNTRY Total

19 Despite the fact that a clear-cut difference in the household structure does not appear between different regional typologies, looking at other indicators (Table 19), a higher average number of members is recorded for rural households compared to urban areas, probably due to a higher fertility rate in rural areas. Finally, predominantly rural areas show a lower share of farm holders with other gainful activities, indicating a low diversification of economic activities and higher dependence on agriculture in these areas. In conclusion, it seems that some of the weaknesses of the Italian labour market and some social problems are particularly serious in rural areas. Notes 4 The relative poverty line varies from year to year on account of variations in both consumer prices and in families consumer spending in real terms, and thus in their consumption behaviours. Accounting for the inflation effect only, i.e. adjusting the 2004 poverty line with the CPI (Consumer price index), one obtains a value for the 2005 poverty line just 1 euro above the standard line. The rise in the poverty line in 2005 appears therefore mainly attributable to an increase in prices, poor families in 2005 being then those who did not reach the standard line in 2004 adjusted in order to account for the price dynamics (ISTAT, 2005). 5 ISTAT, Statistica in breve I consumi delle famiglie Anno 2006 of 5 July The sample of this survey is composed of families drawn randomly from population. However, it has to be reminded that estimation can be biased by sampling errors, hence differences in observed shares of poverty are not necessarily statistically significant due to the sample nature of the survey. For this purpose a confidence interval around the precise estimation has to be built. 6 For example, the poverty threshold for a four-person family is 1.63 times that for a two-person family (1, euros), while the threshold for a six-person family stands at 2.16 times (2, euros) (ISTAT, 2007). 7 Poverty intensity measures how much poor families consumption expenditure falls below the poverty threshold (in percentage). It indicates hence how deep is the poverty on average. 8 At the EU level incidences are calculated in terms of individuals, whereas in Italy figures are in terms of resident families. 9 This is because the poverty threshold has grown with incomes more than inflation, unlike the case of consumptions. 10 In tables 3 the incidences are all calculated in terms of individuals to comply with the EU definition. 11 In Italy, a definition of rural municipality has been adopted in the regional indicators for the assessment of the development policies, which establishes that a area is rural if population density is lower than 100 inhabitants per squared km and the share of agricultural employment is higher than 12,4%, that is two times the EU average (Istat, 2002). Last official classification of Italian municipalities was based on 13 socio-demographic indicators (share of working population employed in agriculture, demographic density access to drinkable water and hygienic facilities in the house etc ) taken from 1981 Census (Istat, 1986). See Istat (1963) for the previous classification and Somogyi (1959), Barberi (1960), Vitali (1980, 1983, 1992) and Merlini (1991, 1992) for a discussion on alternative statistical method. 12 In Italy, they still represent the majority of the farms (almost 95%, Salvioni, Colazilli, 2005). 13 Dependent workers account for 40% of total agricultural employment (Salvioni, Colazilli, 2005). 14 Rural non agricultural households are intended as the ones residing in municipalities with a population density less than inhabitants and/or living in scattered houses or agricultural areas. Globally, farm households cover a bit more than 3% of the observed population, while rural non-agricultural workers account for about 25%. 15 The equivalent income and consumption levels are calculated using OECD equivalence scale (adult=1, individual aged 14 and over=0.5, individual under 14=0.3), assuming intra-household distribution being egalitarian. 16 The negative trend recorded between 2000 and 1995 in incomes and consumption, shows the crisis in the agricultural sector occurred at the end of 1990s. On the opposite, between 2000 and 2002 all the indicators display a substantial recover which leads to a improvement in the condition of these families relative to the average (Salvioni, Colazillli, 2004). 17 Yet, 1995 they owned twice as much as the average Italian family wealth and three times in the 2002 (Salvioni, Colazilli 2004). 18 They do relatively worse than the average Italian household. Moreover, further comparison with the whole totality of wageworkers confirms their relative disadvantaged conditions. For these families as well, the first period ( ) is characterized by a negative trend while in 2002 there is a slight recover (more modest than the one recorded for farm households) (Salvioni, Colazilli, 2004). 19 Poverty rate is measured using headcount index, that is the share of population falling below the poverty line which, in this study, following the Bank of Italy rule is set at 50% of median equivalent income. Setting the poverty line at 60% of median equivalent income as in the EU definition would produce even greater estimates of poverty. 20 Poverty intensity measures the severity in the deprivation condition. It is usually estimated by poverty gap difference between income of the poor and poverty line averaged over all households or squared poverty gap, which gives a higher weight to those further below the poverty line (Salvioni, Colazilli, 2005). 21 Mishra et al. (2002). 22 In addition, it is not always possible to measure income accurately, especially for some groups of the population like the selfemployed or for people working in the grey economy. 23 In this case poverty is not only related to static lack of individual availability of some good, but also to the collective and dynamic capacity of an area of producing income, wealth and in general well-being. In other words, this concept involves the idea of a cumulative effect of individual and collective potentials so that poverty as well as risk of social exclusion are analysed in relation to the environment where he or she lives. 24 The OECD regional typology is based on three criteria. The first criterion identifies rural communities according to population density. A community, normally corresponding at Eurostat LAU2 level (Local Administrative Units corresponding to communes, municipalities and similar) is defined as rural if its population density is below 150 inhabitants per square kilometre. The second criterion classifies regions according to the percentage of population living in rural communities. Thus, a region is classified as: 1) Predominantly urban (PU), if less than 15% of the population lives in rural communities; 2) Intermediate Rural (IR), if the share of population living in rural communities is between 15% and 50%; 3) Predominantly rural (PR), if more than 50% of its population lives in rural communities. The DG-regio classification takes the OECD typology (Predominantly Urban, Intermediate Rural and Predominantly Rural regions) as a starting point. Then it divides both Intermediate Rural regions and Predominantly Rural regions into 2 subcategories, according to the following criterion: 1) Regions close to a city = at least 50% of the region s population lives at less than 1 hour travel by road to a city of at least 100,000 inhabitants; 2) Remote regions = otherwise. Five categories are then identified: 1) Predominantly Urban (PU) regions; 2) Intermediate Rural, close to a city (IR_C) regions; 3) Intermediate Rural, remote (IR_R) regions; 4) Predominantly Rural, close to a city (PR_C) regions; 5) Predominantly Rural, remote (PR_R) regions. 25 Women can be employed in household production, resulting then out of the labour force or unemployed. 26 Indicator 9 Households with low educated (ISCED 0_2) head (% of total private households) - NUTS is not available for Italy at OECD desegregation level. 215

20 4. Rural poverty and policies Since the 1999 reform of EU structural and rural development policy (started with Agenda 2000), the policy programming instruments for rural development measures have been involved in a unification process joining structural measures coming from separate legislative acts under a single document, the Regulation on rural Development (Reg. no. 1257/99). The incorporation of the new rural development policy as a second pillar in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), on the one hand preserves the traditional goals of Community structural policy (improvements in productive structures and enhancing quality output, reconversion and re-channelling of agricultural output, introduction of new technology), and, on the other hand, reflects concern for an integrated approach to territory in pursuing sustainable rural development (diversification of activity, strengthening the social fabric of rural areas, promotion of sustainable agriculture that observes environmental criteria, promotion of equal opportunities by gender) (Monteleone, Storti, 2004). Recent stages in the EU Rural Development policies (Fischler reform and Second European Conference on Rural Development in Salzburg: Planting seeds for rural futures ) established a new procedure in designing and financing measures for rural development, which will be achieved, out of the cohesion policies, through ad hoc regional and/or national programmes, its delivery being based on a single programming, financing and control system and on a single Fund 27. In Italy, the devolution of many tasks to regional authorities implied a decentralized management of community programmes for rural areas, with a consequent significant fragmentation and a regional diversification of policy strategies. The Regions in the Centre-North of Italy apply rural measures as part of a comprehensive Rural Development Plan (RDP) for the whole region, cofinanced by EAGGF- Guaranty section. Concerning the objective 1 Regions, RDPs contain accompanying measures only while compensation benefits are integrated in Regional Operational Programme (Structural Funds programming) and cofinanced by EAGGF- Guidance section (Monteleone, Storti, 2004). The recent regulation 1698/2005 promotes a strategic approach to programming and implementation of measures implying the adoption of an EU and a national strategic plan for within the three following objectives, each of them having a specific minimum expenditure threshold: Competitiveness of agricultural and forestry sector (25%) Environment implementation (10%) Economic diversification of rural areas and improvement of quality of life (10%). The main documents to analyze rural development policies in Italy are the NSRs and the Rural Development Plans. The Stakeholders who took part in the cross-consultations for the drafting of the National Rural Development Plan included both institutional figures and representatives of the economic, social and environmental partnership. The former represented: the autonomous Regions and Provinces concerned with planning for rural development; the Ministries directly or indirectly concerned with such planning (e.g. the Ministries of Economy and Finance, and of the Environment); AGEA (Agency for supplies in agriculture) and ISTAT, as well INEA (National agrarian economy institute) and ISMEA (Agriculture market services institute), which provide the necessary technical assistance. The latter represented: professional and cooperative organisations, in both the agricultural and forest sectors; the major environmental associations; the Young agricultural entrepreneurs watch-station (OIGA), and the organisation for women entrepreneurs in agriculture (ONILFA); national associations representing the local action groups (LAGs) implementing the Leader + EU initiative; sub-regional territorial bodies (ANCI National Association of Italian Communes, UNCEM the National 216

21 Union of Mountain Municipalities, and UPI the Union of Italian Provinces); the major union organisations; consumer associations; various other bodies in the industrial and agro-industrial sector, trade, crafts and banks, as well as the professional association of agronomists. The PIC LEADER (EU initiative for rural development) has been implemented in Italy as from the first plan launched in the early 1980s. Under way at present is the LEADER +. Each Region (NUTS2) has drawn up a LEADER Regional Plan indicating the areas in the region involved in the programme, together with the broad strategy pursued and the catalysing points of the Local Development Plans drawn up by the LAGs. The relative freedom granted the LAGs in the choice of actions to work on implied at the national level a range of lines, of which only a minority focused on points directly involved in the fight against poverty (Campennì, 2006). Although not explicitly addressed, the aim of fighting poverty is indirectly pursued. Action is taken to promote economic development in the designated areas with activities in support of the local firms, training included. Moreover, in compliance with the EU indications, in granting financing priority has gone to initiatives of the young and women. Furthermore, one of the catalysing points in the LEADER + programme is Enhancement of the quality of life. In this respect a number of LAGs have launched pilot projects to fight exclusion. The direct CAP payments represent a form of support for the income of Italian farmers which may seem to help fight poverty. In fact, analysing the available data for the year 2000, it appears that the contributions have to a great extent gone to the big farmers: while three quarters of the farmers received direct aid for less than 1250 euros; by contrast, three percent of them were assigned forty percent of the total sum distributed in Italy 28 (Sivini G., 2006). Structural funds were used in Italy in planning through the Single Programme Documents (SPDs), the Regional Operational Programmes (ROPs) and the National Operational Programmes (NOPs). The latter are managed by the Ministries concerned and find application throughout all the southern areas. The SPDs were drawn up on the basis of cross-consultation at the local level by the Regions whose areas come within the scope of Objective 2 in Italy the regions of the Centre-North. The ROPs were drawn up, again on the basis of cross-consultation at the local level, by the Objective 1 Regions in Italy the Southern regions, where, as already seen, there is a notable concentration of poor families. The ROPs are multifund programmes (ERDF, ESF, EAGGF and FIFG 29 ) and provide for interventions, (also at the level of EAGGF Guidance), specifically involving rural areas, while the Regional Rural Development Plan (RDP) stands as the EAGGF Guarantee implementational document (Figure 14). Figure 14. EAGGF planning, Objective 1 Regions Diversification and modernization measures Ex accompanying measures and compensation allowances ROP RDP Out of Objective 1 regions Programming complement Diversification and modernization measures Ex accompanying measures and compensation allowances Source: Gaudio P.,

22 Figure 15. Planning Cohesion Funds, ESF,ERDF EARDF ( European Agriculture and Rural Development fund) EFF ( European Fisheries Fund) EU Strategic Guidance EU Strategic Guidance EU Strategic Guidance National strategic Framework National strategic Framework National strategic Framework Regional Strategic document Regional Strategic document National operational plan Regional operational plan Regional rural development plan Regional operational plan Integration Source:INEA, (2004). Some ROPs, as in the case of Calabria, have adopted as possible model for implementation of the measures on expenditure provided for by the ROP that of integrated planning. This has led to the creation of RAIPs (Rural Areas Integrated Projects) and IFPs (Integrated Filière Projects) which provide for the constitution of local mixed public-private partnerships working, in the former case, on projects to enhance the quality of life of rural populations, and in the latter case plans to promote an agricultural or agro-industrial filière. The ROPs are structured in priority intervention axes: Natural resources; Cultural resources; Human resources; Local development systems; Cities; Service networks and nodes; Technical assistance. Interventions qualifying for EAGGF co-funding come within Axis 1 and Axis 4. Here we have 22 measures concerning: modernisation of structures (investment in farms; placement of young farmers; training; transformation and marketing of agricultural produce; early retirement; estate reorganisation; certain forestry measures); environmental objectives (agro-environmental measures; afforestation of agricultural areas; protection of the environment; estate enhancement; further forestry measures; restoration of the agricultural heritage damaged by natural disasters); direct income support (indemnities); business and economic diversification (marketing of quality product; incentives for tourist and craft activities; diversification of activities in the agricultural sector; renovation of villages and protection of the rural heritage); 218

23 Figure 16. Planning rural development in Italy Regions of the Centre-North 14 Rural development Plans EAGGF G 1 Strategic Document of the European Commission 14 Regional Leader Plans 14 planning Plans EAGGF O Complements Regions objective 1 1 EU Support Framework (ERDF,FSE,FIFG and EAGGF O) 1 National Strategic Plan (MIPAF) 7 regional operational 7 planning Programmes EAGGF G Complements 7 Rural Development Plans EAGGF O 21 Rural Development Programmes FEASR 7 Regional Leader 7 plannig Programmes EAGGF O Complements Source: INEA, infrastructures and services (management of water resources in agriculture; enhancement of rural infrastructures; management substitution and assistance services; services essential to the economy and the rural population; financial engineering). In the coming programme, in accordance with EU indications, the programme documents will follow a different system of division (Figure 15). Apart from the utilisation of structural funds, the programme documents also provide national co-funding through the UAF (Underutilised Areas Fund). The ERDF and ESF funds will be used for implementation of the National Strategic Framework (officially consigned to the Commission in March this year for final approval). The NSF determines a strategy designed to purse 4 Macro-objectives: 1. Developing knowledge circuits; 2. Improving the quality of life, security and social inclusion in the areas; 3. Enhancing the productive filières, services and competition; 4. Internationalising and modernising. The NSF will be implemented at the regional level through the Mono-fund regional operational programmes (one for the ERDF and one for the ESF) in the Competitiveness and employment and Convergence objectives areas. The Regions are at present working in cross-consultation with local institutions and bodies on the final version of the ROPs to be approved by the European Commission. There are also some National operational programmes, run by the Ministries at the central level and operative solely in the Convergence objective areas. These programmes have to do with: Education, Research and Competitiveness, Security, Mobility networks, Governance and system actions (only the latter also working in the Competitiveness and employment objective areas). Schematically, the variations in the rural development programme in Italy (Figure 16) point up the attempt to simplify procedures with a single National Strategic Plan coordinated by the Ministry of Agriculture and 21 RDPs drawn up at the regional level. 219

24 The major novelties in the new rural development policy can be summed up thus: Specific and single fund for rural development 30 (FEASR) Single planning system (only one programme) Elimination of the planning complements Single control and management system Automatic disengagement rule (n+2 ) Equilibrium between priority axes (financial management for Axes) LEADER approach integrated with the axes. The National Strategic Plan for Rural Development applies to all of Italy s rural areas and has three broad objectives: to increase competitiveness in the sectors of agriculture and forestry through innovation, filiére integration, increasing human capital and developing material and immaterial infrastructure (ICT) and improving the quality of products); to enhance the environment and rural areas through management of the territory; to create job opportunity and to improve the quality of life in the rural areas and favour the diversification of economic activities. It is organised in 4 Axes: Axis 1 Increasing competitiveness in the sectors of agriculture and forestry; Axis 2 Enhancing the environment and rural areas; Axis 3 Improving the quality of life in rural areas and favouring diversification in the rural economy; Axis 4- LEADER. Each axis has priority objectives. In particular, it is Axis 3 that explicitly provides for certain actions to fight exclusion, and in fact its priority objectives are: Maintenance and/or creation of employment and income opportunities in rural areas; Enhancement of the attractiveness of rural areas for entrepreneurs and populations In fact, the actions proposed include the creation of a network of services for the population. Among the targeted groups it is suggested that particular attention should be paid to young, women and aged, as well as seasonal and non-eu workers and persons in situations of distress and exclusion. With regard to the latter category, productive firms are considered worth promoting and supporting, also in the area of agriculture, and services working in the field of social agriculture (use of the farm to satisfy social needs such as rehabilitation and inclusion of the disadvantaged, didactic activities for schools, etc.). The National Strategic Plan was consigned to the EU in December 2006 and declared acceptable: negotiation is in progress for definitive approval. A further 10 Regional Rural Development Plans have been notified, of which 7 have been declared acceptable. The other RDPs are now being drawn up. Summing up, concerning the evaluation of the past experience, the high fragmentation of rural policy has pointed out several weaknesses for the Italian programming system, in terms of: national co-ordination. In Italy, the Agricultural and Forestry Policies Ministry (MiPAF) is not a Managing Authority (does not have expenditure power), but has a co-ordination responsibility of all rural programmes. It is evident the difficulty of co-ordinating 21 Administrations; moreover, besides RDPs there are 7 Objective 1 ROPs and the 21 Leader + Programmes. Furthermore, in Objective 1 MiPAF is the Reference Authority for rural development interventions, co-ordinating sectorial administrative bodies, which are in turn coordinated, at regional level, by the administrative bodies in charge for the Managing of the programme (Monteleone, Storti, 2004). weaknesses in regional bargaining power: the chance of flexible interpretation of community regulations has rarely been exploited due to lack of negotiation capacity; more restrictive interpretation has prevailed, especially in the case of innovative actions. 220

25 lack of coordination among different programmes, particularly in the case of Objective 1 regions, which would have needed a better integration between ROPs and RDPs. Finally, even if a proper assessment of rural policy in Italy is still lacking, data on distribution of financial endowment by category of measures (Figure 17) show how community rural development policies still present a strong sectorial bias. In fact, the funding allocation for diversification measures likeliest to promote balanced growth, whether sectorial, territorial or social, is minimal (4% of total) compared to that for sectorial modernisation measures (34%) or that for interventions such as accompanying measures (34%), which in simple terms are little more than handouts to farmers (Monteleone, Storti, 2004). Figure 17. The programming in Italy: Financial endowment by category of intervention, 2004 Source: INEA based on AGEA and IGRUE Concerning the distribution of spending among categories of interventions, environmental measures are the fastest spending ones. It has to be noticed the strong predominance of previous accompanying measures contributed significantly in its positive performance. In fact, the total spending on accompanying measures covers almost 70% of the programmed resources and 80% of such spending attains at previous commitments (Monteleone, Storti, 2004). The implementation of diversification measures is delayed and expenditure for this section amounts at 1% of total spending for rural development in Italy, which accounts for only 17% of the total budget devoted to such measures (Figure 18) (Monteleone, Storti, 2004). Figure 18. The implementation of rural policy in Italy: public spending by category of intervention, 2004 Source: INEA based on AGEA and IGRUE The picture emerging shows that speed of payment has been a priority; in fact, in the implementation focused on fast spending measures (handouts and awarding measures for farmers) and semiautomatic selection procedures (open selection and simplified modalities of access to aid). This evidence indicates a concrete risk of insufficient attention on the achievement of outcomes (Monteleone, Storti, 2004). Focusing on the funding distribution of EAGGF-financed measures in the Objective 1 regions, distribution of resources displays interventions aimed at increasing the competitiveness in the filière, (modernisation and 221

26 accompanying measures) are prevailing, absorbing 64% of the planned contributions, compared to the rural development policies (including the environmental ones) whose share settles around 36%. Total public funding available for EAGGF fund in Objective 1 regions for the NSP is 5,592 millions. Decomposition of EAGGF by specific objectives shows an unbalanced picture, expenditure on development and aid to rural areas being one third less than the amount destined to competitiveness, and a financial implementation progress rather modest (24% of payments were accomplished at the end of 2004), (INEA, 2004). A slightly different picture is recorded for environmental measures, which, despite the modest weight covering in terms of resources, show a quite fast financial implementation both in terms of commitments (61%) and in terms of payments (41%) (Table 21). Southern regions (objective 1 regions) show a highly heterogeneous picture concerning priorities and implementation forms, with Campania and Molise scoring best in terms of payment progress and balance among the three objectives (43% competitiveness, 31% rural development, 25% environment in Campania). Table 21. Financial implementation of EAGGF financed measures by specific objectives (commitment and payment in M. euro) in objective 1 regions, 31/12/2004 Total contribution Commitments Payments (B)/A) (C)/(A) Total (A) % Total (B) % Total (C) % % % Competitiveness Rural development Environment Total Source: CSF updating, Figure 19. Financial (commitment versus payment) implementation of EAGGF financed measures as % in Objective 1 regions, 31/12/2004 a. Financial implementation b. Financial implementation competitiveness Payment implementation Payment implementation c. Financial implementation rural areas d. Financial implementation environment Payments implementation Payments implementation Source: CSF updating,

27 Obviously, ex post monitoring reports on the programmes are not available yet, and assessment of the real impact of these projects on rural areas turns out to be difficult. Although communitarian policies affecting rural areas were not aimed specifically at fighting social exclusion and poverty, they can however produce significant indirect effects in terms of improving living standards in rural areas. However, as already mentioned, if on the one hand the massive amount of resources destined to agricultural farms could have had a positive effects on rural areas, the heterogeneity of effects among different farms (by dimension and productive activity) has had a rather different impact on rural areas, with a sort of discrimination of less favoured areas, usually characterized by a prevalence of small-medium enterprises, generally less productive, and/or activities scarcely protected by the CAP 31 (Bertolini et al., 2005; Camaioni, 2007).Moreover, these policies concern mainly farmers, while agricultural wageworkers which, as seen in section 2.2 are the most disadvantaged category being marginally touched by these policies. The rural development policy (contained in the RDPs) has not a sectoral feature being instead expressly aimed at promoting an improvement in the living conditions of rural population. However, an overall evaluation of the activity in this field has shown a prevalence of infrastructural interventions (electrification, viability, irrigation etc ) while a small room was reserved to innovative measures such as the diversification of economic and business activities (crafts, tourism, transformation of typical products). A limited integration between the various measures financed with the different Structural Funds in all the areas (North, Centre, South) has been recorded. In addition, poor results are recorded from measures for less developed areas, turning out to be insufficient in filling the gaps with other areas in terms of productivity and income (Solustri, Finocchio, 2006). Globally, then, effects on the access to services and therefore on quality of living in rural areas have been unsatisfactory (Raimondo, Lucatelli, 2007). In conclusion, most of the rural development policies still keep a marked sectoral connotation, and they hardly toil to become transversal and territorial based policies. Most of the interventions in rural areas are incentives for farms, while other important actors such as wage agricultural workers, (more exposed to the risk of poverty than farm households) have marginally benefited from this policy. As already mentioned, coordination among standard policies (above all social policies, school, health, transport etc ) and local regional and rural policies would be crucial in promoting rural development. Notes 27 This creation of a rural specific found reflects the principle one fund, one programme, and was established by the EU Reg. n.1698/ The Italian farmers receiving direct aid in 2000 number nearly one million six hundred thousand, the total sum standing at 2.8 billion euros. 29 The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) finances actions to remedy imbalance between European regions, to make up the gap for regions lagging in development, due to a preponderance of agricultural activities, addressing industrial conversion and structural underemployment; the European Social Fund (ESF) addresses the development of human resources with training and professional re-qualification activities; the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), instituted by the Reg. CE n. 729/70, now coming under Regulation CE 1257/99, subdivided in Guidance and Guarantee sections, aims at promoting economic but also social development, in rural areas, in accordance with the community agricultural policy (CAP); as from 2007 it is to be regulated by Reg. CE n. 1685/99 and will be called EAFRD (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development); the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG) funds projects for improvements in the sector of fisheries, aquaculture and the transformation and marketing of fish products. As from 2007 it is to be termed EFF (European Fisheries Fund). 30 It has to be noticed that separation of rural development policy from cohesion policy and its autonomous financing can produce an isolation of rural policies from other structural measures that could reduce its effectiveness, fully contrasting the prevailing literature on this topic, which suggests a coordination among territorial policies is crucial for promotion of rural areas (OECD, 2006). The emphasis on the need of a strong integration between regional policy and rural development policies in the NSF is then explained (Raimondo, Lucatelli, 2007). 31 In Italy, 94% of beneficiaries receive 32% of payments in benefits less than euros; among these, the 69.3% receive less than 1250 euros (10.2% of the total expenditure); just 110 firms absorb more than 107 millions euros, while nearly 1 million beneficiaries take just 337 millions euros. 223

28 5. Poverty and groups at risk: case studies on significant groups at risk As already mentioned in section 3.3, poverty is a multi-dimensional issue and the need to account for the different facets of this phenomenon has been widely recognized by academic literature, international institutions and statistical offices, which have recently started to compute statistical multi-dimensional indicators of poverty and social exclusion. An interesting systematization of the multidimensional approach has been proposed by Eurostat (2005). This approach is aimed at integrating the information provided by common indicators with information on people s living standards by looking at the absolute material deprivation. This measure is based on different dimensions ( economic strain ), being defined as an enforced lack of a set of items depicting material living conditions (such as housing conditions, possession of durables, capacity to afford basic requirements etc ). All these dimensions are then grouped in a single composite multidimensional indicator 32 (Eurostat 2006). According to this approach a person is deprived in a dimension if he/she lacks at least two items (Figure 20). Figure 20. Deprivation dimension structure Source: Eurostat, Statistics in focus, 2005 Following Eurostat outline, ISTAT has computed a set of material deprivation indicators (Survey on Income and Living Conditions). As for other traditional poverty measures, these indicators do not follow a rural vs urban classification but are broken-down by regions (NUTS 2 level), geographical macro-areas, household typologies, classes of age, commune typologies, etc allowing for a better analysis of households living standards and, especially, of features of the most vulnerable groups. Although they do not make a distinction between rural and urban areas, their classification by regions and population provide a chance for a break-down among families living in urban and rural intensive regions (i.e. regions with a high incidence of rural areas such as the South or less densely populated communes). In particular, three groups at risk of poverty and social exclusion will be focused on: households, elderly, long-term unemployed. 224

29 5.1 Poor households A joint interpretation of income-based and other non-monetary indicators of economic disadvantage and material deprivation seems to show income poverty and deprivation as being strongly associated. Looking both at poverty incidence and material deprivation indicators (Tables 22 and 23), households experiencing poverty and bad living conditions are in both cases mainly given by families with a high number of components, with dependent children, or then ones including elderly, and those composed of lone people. In particular the highest incidence of income poverty is recorded among households composed of five or more members: 24,3% of these families live in poverty in Italy, but this value increases to 37.5% considering the Southern regions of the country (which have also the highest incidence of rural areas). The relative poverty incidence among couples with at least 3 children in 2006 amounted to 25,6% (38,0% in the South), while a significant share is found also among lone parents (25,0% in the South), which being higher than in previous years (from 13,4% to 13,8%). Table 22. Relative poverty incidence (%) by width, household typology, number of dependent children, geographical areas. (2005, 2006). North Centre South Italy Household components 1 member 3,7 4, , , ,1 2 members 4.2 5, , , ,9 3 members 4.1 4, , , ,0 4 members 5.9 6, , , ,8 At least 5 members , , , ,3 Household typology Couple with 1 child 3.9 3, , , ,6 Couple with 2 children 5.4 6, , , ,5 Couple with at least 3 children 8.9 8,3 * * , ,6 lone parent 5.8 8,1 * 7, , ,8 Households with dependent children 1 underage child 4.8 3, , , ,3 2 underage children 7.2 8, , , ,2 at least 3 underage children * 8,2 * * , ,2 at least 1 underage child 6.3 5, , , ,4 Source: Istat(2007),La povertà relativa in Italia nel By looking at indicators of deprivation, it can be noticed that households with dependent children and those composed of lone parents with dependent children appear the most exposed to the risk of suffering condition of economic disadvantage (Table 23). In fact, 10.1% of them have faced periods without sufficient resources for food, 17.6% have coped with health diseases, while more than 20% have experienced periods of scarce income resources to afford transports (19%), schooling (20.3%), taxes (23.4%) and basic clothes (29%) expenditures. Moreover, almost 20% of these families experienced periods with insufficient resources to pay their bills (Table 24). Moreover, as expected, availability of economic resources, number of income recipients and sources of disposable of income, coupled with the professional position, educational attainments and age of the main income perceiver are significantly relevant in determining households living standards. Looking at a set of economic unease indicators representing a temporary status of poverty (Table 23), a particularly acute disadvantaged situation is recorded for Southern households: these indicators show a widespread deprivation in many of the basic dimensions in the South and in the Islands which, as already mentioned, are - coupled with the mountainous areas (Alps and Apennines) - the most rural regions. 225

30 Table 23. Households declaring not sufficient resources in some spell of the year for non-durable goods by household typology Year 2004 (%) Food Disease Basic clothes School Transport Tax Household members 1 member members members members At least 5 members Household typology Couple with at least one underage child 4,6 9,8 19,0 10,1 10,3 15,1 Couple with adult children 5,3 11,2 16,0 4,3 8,3 13,3 Single parents with at least one underage child 10,1 17,6 29,0 20,3 19,5 23,4 Single parents with adult children 6,5 13,3 19,4 3,3 9,6 13,8 Households with dependent children None underage children underage child underage children at least 3 underage children Geographical areas North-west 4,1 7,0 11,7 2,5 5,3 6,8 North-east 4,4 8,0 12,2 2,1 5,3 6,9 Center 4,6 9,7 14,3 3,3 6,2 9,8 South Islands Italy Municipality population-based typologies Center of metropolitan area Suburbs of metropolitan area Until inhabitants from to inhabitants From to inhabitants At least inhabitants Italy Source: Istat, Survey on income and living conditions (2005). These data are also confirmed by income based measures as poverty incidence figures: in 2005, in fact, about one third of Italian household lived in the South but nearly 70% of poor Italian households were concentrated there. Finally, looking at the commune typology, the most serious problems of disadvantaged living conditions seems to lie in the metropolitan areas or suburbs rather than in less populated communes. However, it has to be remarked that this kind of desegregation cannot be considered a good proxy for measuring the degree of rurality since it does not consider population density (OECD classification) and/or distance from the main centre (DG Regio classification) but just population. 226

31 Table 24. Households declaring to have outstanding expenses by items, households and main recipient typologies - Year 2004 (%) Bills Rent or Loan (b) Other Debts (c) Household members 1 member 7,9 4,2 17,7 2 members 6,2 2,2 12,2 3 members 9,2 4,3 12,5 4 members At least 5 members Household typologies Couple with at least one underage child 12,6 5,3 14,2 Couple with adult children 7,8 2,5 11,3 Single parents with at least one underage child 19,9 9,7 21,7 Single parents with adult children 9,6 3,7 20,0 (d) Number of dependent children None One Two At least three (d) 31.1 (d) Main income source Wage income Self-employed income public transfers Geographical areas North-west 5,2 4,0 10,2 North-east 5,1 2,4 8,7 Centre 8,0 2,8 13,8 South ,2 Islands ,9 Italy ,4 (d) Estimation from a sample included between 20 and 49 units Source: Istat Survey on income and living conditions (2005). Concerning basic needs, then, households with three or more dependent children and those with lone parent and underage children are again the more likely family typologies at risk of deprivation in essential facilities: more than 10% of these households cannot manage to pay for an adequate feeding and more than 14% cannot meet the expense of keeping home adequately warm, while nearly a half of these households cannot afford one week holyday a year. In line with what expected, households with one income recipient have a risk of deprivation twice as much as other households. Confirming the association with the monetary dimension of poverty, deprivation conditions result particularly widespread in the Mezzogiorno (Table 25), where 13.5% of households living in the South and about 12% of those living in the islands declare not to be able to afford an adequate meal every second day. Into these two macro-areas, in particular in the islands, the share of houses without heating system is not negligible: more than 21% of resident households can not keep their home sufficiently warm and more than 58% states not being able to afford one week holiday a year. 227

32 Table 25. Households which can not afford some basic necessities, by household typologies and geographical areas - Year 2004 (%) Afford a meal with Afford to keep One week annual meat, chicken or fish home adequately holyday away every second day warm from home Household components 1 member 9,9 13,7 43,2 2 members 6,7 9,1 36,7 3 members 6,4 9,0 34,1 4 members 5,6 9,7 36,9 At least 5 members 10,0 16,0 49,1 Household typology Couple with at least one underage child 5,4 9,4 35,2 Couple with adult children 6,4 9,3 36,2 Single parents with at least one underage child 10,4 14,5 49,1 Single parents with adult children 9,0 12,5 39,4 Households with dependent children None underage children underage child underage children at least 3 underage children Geographical areas North-west North-east Centre South Island Italy Source: Istat Survey on income and living conditions (2005). Finally, given the numerous limits of longitudinal data on income, lack of essential durables or difficulties in payments can provide an interesting proxy of persistent poverty, since it indicates a scarcity of (permanent) resources rather than of an adequate level of current income. For these items 33 as well, the gap between Mezzogiorno and the rest of Italy in poverty incidence is confirmed in terms of material deprivation, since households living in the South and in the islands show the highest percentage of inability to afford these kinds of expenditures (Table 26). Italy is at the bottom of European ranking in term of social spending for family support. In fact, public expenditure aimed at supporting family burden, contrasting households poverty, for care functions, and for reconciliation between care and job responsibilities are scarce and below the European average 34 (Istat 2006). Considering tax allowances, cheques and other allowances, families receive cash transfers for just 20 billion euros, 1.5 points of GDP, while the social expenditure provided by municipalities, amounted in 2004 to 5.4 billion euros, about 2% more than the previous year (ISTAT, 2004). Moreover, no special interventions are set for rural households in these fields. On the opposite verge, considering the in-kind social expenditure component, an extremely heterogeneous picture is recorded among Italian regions: households living in the more rural Mezzogiorno are less supported than those living in the northern part of the country

33 Table 26. Households declaring not being able to afford some durable goods, by good typology, by geographical areas and commune typology - Year 2004 (%) Car Tele- Video- Personal Washing Internet Parabolic Videophone tape computer machine aerial camera Geographical areas North-west North-east Centre South Island Italy Comune typology Center of metropolitan area Suburbs of metropolitan area Until inhabitants 2.9 (a) From to inhabitants From to inhabitants At least inhabitants Italy Source: Istat Survey on income and living conditions (2005). 5.2 Elderly The problem of ageing is significantly marked. Italy is in fact the second country in the world in term of ageing population. According to ISTAT, in 2018 average life duration will reach in Italy 78.8 years for male and 84.3 for women, while individuals older than 60 years would represent 28.9% of population, the ageing index reaching then a value of 184 (Table 27). Table 27. Old age population (as % of the total) and ageing indicators Population over 60 13,1 19,4 23,0 28,9 34,4 Population over 80 1,3 2,8 4,2 6,8 7,6 Share of over 80 on total elderly 9,6 14,4 18,2 23,4 22,1 Indicators Ageing index (a) Old age dependency rate (b) (a) (population over 65/population with age 0-14) x 100 (b) (population over 60/population 20-59) x 100 Source: ISTAT (2004). The increase in life expectancy among over 80-years-old people is a particularly significant phenomenon and represents a complex challenge for the social system in the next decades. Although aging can be considered a general trend in Italy, in certain areas it has become a chronic tendency. A highly heterogeneous pattern is recorded across regions, where significant differences emerge both in term of levels and speed of the ageing process, slower in Southern regions - thanks to a higher birth rate and relatively quick in central and northern regions. Ageing process appears to be markedly pronounced especially in the more remote areas, probably due to recent and widespread out-migration which has lead to a move of young people towards less remote locations and the ensuing depopulation of whole areas. Comparing rural to average Italian households (Figure 21), a marked aging process emerges among farm households 36, whose percentage weight in class is particularly high as compared to the Italian average households 37 (Salvioni, Colazilli, 2004). 229

34 Figure 21. Italian families by household head age Up to 30 years From 31 to 40 From 41 to 50 From 51 to and over Italian households Wage dependent households Farm households Rural non agricultural households Source: Salvioni and Colazilli (2004). A striking feature of poverty in Italy is the higher incidence among households with elderly people (13.8%, significantly above the national average), which, as already mentioned, are mainly concentrated in the South where ageing is faster. Infact, looking at relative poverty incidence by age, a substantially higher share is recorded among the over 65 in the Mezzogiorno (25.4 % in 2006). Moreover, in recent years the condition of the elderly seems worse as already emerged looking at the evidence on consumption: their poverty incidence has increased over time, in particular for families with almost one over-65- years old component (from 13.6% to 13,8) and for families with two elderly components (from 15,2 to 15.3%) (Table 28). The evidence from the national definition of poverty is however in contrast with the one merging from the EU income-based measure: in terms of income, in fact, the elderly appear relatively less poor 38 (15% incidence), except for those living alone. This last remark is further confirmed by figures on deprivation on some non durable goods (Table 29), which display a less severe picture for the elderly in some items (clothes, food, bills, etc ) while, given their specific needs, a worse situation is registered for them in the disease item. This evidence is strongly related with the issue of supply and access to health and social services, which becomes particularly important in rural areas. Moreover, the higher poverty incidence among lone aged people 39 is associated with problems in affording some basic necessities, suggesting that low living standards and marginalization of the elderly are serious issues requiring social inclusion interventions. Table 28. Relative poverty incidence by household typology, age classes and geographical areas. Year North Centre Mezzogiorno Italy Household typology lone person less than 65 * * * * 9,4 8,8 3,5 3,3 lone person at least 65 5,8 8,2 7, ,5 22, ,6 couple h.h. less then 65 2,0 2,6 * * 14,8 12,3 4,8 4,9 couple h.h. at least 65 5,9 7,0 7,3 8,7 29,7 24,5 12, Age Up to ,1 * 6, , ,5 from 35 to , , , ,5 from 45 to , , , ,1 from 55 to , , , ,5 At least , , , ,8 Households with elderly 1 elderly 6.0 7,9 7,3 8,0 26,0 23,8 12,9 13,0 at lest 2 elderly 7,0 7,8 9,2 11,9 33,2 29,3 15,2 15,3 at lest 1 elderly 6,3 7,9 8,0 9,3 28,2 25,5 13,6 13,8 * value statistically non significant due to small sample. Source: (2007) Istat, La Povertà relativa in Italia nel

35 Table 29. Households declaring not sufficient resources in some spell of the year for non-durable goods and reporting outstanding expenses by household typology, age and number of elderly in the households, 2004 (%) Food Disease Basic clothes Bills Rent or Loan Other Debts Household typology Lone person under 65 6,1 11,1 18,8 10,7 6,4 17,9 Lone person over 65 6,1 16,8 18,1 5,1 2,0 (d).. Couple without dependent children and h.h. under 65 (a) 4,2 9,7 12,9 5,9 2,4 10,7 Couple without dependent children and h.h. over 65 3,7 15,0 13,6 3,9.... Number of elderly in the households No elderly 5,4 10,7 18,4 10,9 5,1 14,4 One elderly 5,7 15,2 17,3 6,3 2,1 15,3 Two or more elderly 3,7 14,7 13,8 4,2.... Age classes Less then 35 6,3 11,5 19,4 12,5 7,6 13, ,4 9,3 17,8 11,4 5,4 14, ,2 10,0 17,8 9,8 3,8 14, ,7 12,4 16,6 7,8 2,4 15,5 65 or more 5,2 16,0 16,8 5,6 1,5 14,5 Source: Istat Survey on income and living conditions (2005). Table 30. Households which can not afford some basic necessities, by household typology, number of elderly in the household, and age Year 2004 (%) Afford a meal with Afford to keep One week annual meat, chicken or fish home adequately holyday away every second day warm from home Household typology Lone person under 65 8,9 12,4 33,3 Lone person over 65 10,9 15,0 53,0 Couple without dependent children and under 65 5,4 7,9 29,2 Couple without dependent children and over 65 7,2 8,5 44,2 Number of elderly in the households No elderly 6,7 10,2 34,5 One elderly 9,6 13,4 47,7 Two or more elderly 7,7 9,5 44,2 Age classes Less then 35 7,8 11,0 36, ,7 9,5 32, ,1 9,4 33, ,1 10,5 35,7 65 or more 9,7 12,9 49,0 Source: Istat Survey on income and living conditions (2005). 231

36 Focusing on rural areas, the issue of the access to services has been recently discussed in an interesting work by Lucatelli et al. (2006). Although focusing on one region in the centre of Italy (Umbria), this study represents one of the few territorial analyses of policies, whose methodology and findings can be partially extended to some other rural areas. The territorial analysis conducted has been used to assess the ex ante demand, the supply of health and social services and their accessibility in a spatial perspective. One of the main findings of this study is that, although per-capita public health investment is in line with the Italian average, regional health policy in recent years applied to all areas indistinctly, even the more remote ones. However, remoteness seems still to matter in the accessibility to health services, especially with regard to old people and hospitals. Only one third of total service delivery points serving rural areas offer a full set of basic services (Lucatelli et al., 2006). Moreover, although Umbrian regional policy provides several social interventions, a specific strategy for social policies in rural areas does not exist, while rural policies still have a sectorial connotation. These findings are likely to be common to many other regions in Italy, (especially in the South) where the situation can be worse because of income poverty and inefficiency in the provision of health and social benefits. Such problems magnify in in remote areas in the Mezzogiorno where they are usually coupled with underdevelopment and social exclusion. Welfare systems flaws have contributed to deepen disadvantage and marginalization of some areas and of some groups through the lack of targeted and effective policies specifically aimed at fighting social exclusion and deprivation. In particular, if on the one hand the unbalanced weight on pension in welfare expenditure has prevented and limited income poverty among elderly (although it is still high), on the other hand cash transfers do not prove to be sufficient to contrast marginalization and to cope with the specific problems now outlined. Few shy interventions in the direction of tackling the ageing problems have been accomplished with the law 238/2000 which introduces the chance for Regions to issue vouchers to elderly for purchasing social and health services from authorized bodies and individuals. More recently, the budget law 296/2006 has provided the setting up of a national fund for non self-sufficient people, which represents a first step in gaining awareness of the increasing and widespread difficulties in accessing heath and social service among the elderly. However, probably due also to the lack of territorial analysis, specific health and social interventions for the elderly living in rural areas are still missing. 5.3 Long-term unemployed Despite the slight improvement in term of employment recently recorded by the country as a whole, Italy still presents one of the lowest employment rates in Europe, with a highly heterogeneous picture across regions and areas as well as by gender. Coupled with the low employment rate, unemployment is still one of the most debated and socially sensitive problems, particularly in the South. This issue is also strictly related to poverty, unemployment being one of the main determinants of poverty: almost one third of families whose head is unemployed (31.4%) is also poor. 83% of them live in the Mezzogiorno where the incidence reaches the 43.3%. This evidence supports the importance of labour market participation in determining poverty (ISTAT 2005). In this field, the most alarming concern in Italy, and in particular in southern regions, is represented by long term unemployment 40. (Table 31) The dimension of the phenomenon is particularly marked in Italy, where the long term unemployment rate is above 8%, while European average share is lower than 5%. The ratio between long term and total unemployment is 49.7% in 2006, but differences among macro-areas are rather noticeable. In 2006 an incidence equal to 57.6% is recorded in Mezzogiorno where it displays also an upward trend in the last three years, the two most affected regions being Sicily and Campania (60% and 59.1%). In addition, this phenomenon is even more severe for women (51.3% in Italy and 60.1% in the Mezzogiorno in 2006). The aforementioned increase in life expectancy may have played a role in causing long term unemployment. The so-called active aging phenomenon had in fact a significant influence on employment and labour markets, persons with long work experience, middle-aged or older, being more likely exposed to a risk of marginalisation and social exclusion if persisting in a status of unemployment for a long time. Adult unemployment rates have increased during the past decade and the beginning of this decade, showing a predominantly long term connotation. The increase of adult unemployment has been associated with a rise in the proportion of no-job households. The role of family in providing a safety net [ ] is declining and temporary workers often do not have access to social insurance against the risk of job loss (Boeri et al. 2000). Despite the recent reforms aimed at reducing unemployment through the flexibilization of labour markets, a non negligible share of young long-term unemployed 41 is recorded. 232

37 Table 31. Incidence of long-term unemployment as a share of people looking for employment for at least 12 months on total people looking for employment (%) Geographical macro-areas North-West 34,4 33,3 31,4 38,0 38,6 36,6 39,1 North- East 19,5 19,0 17,0 24,3 27,9 30,9 31,8 Center 49,9 47,6 44,2 44,1 43,5 44,2 46,5 Center-North 37,2 35,7 32,9 37,4 37,9 38,1 40,3 South 57,8 58,0 55,7 56,9 54,8 56,1 57,6 Italy 49,7 49,4 46,9 49,3 47,7 48,3 49,7 Programming Cicle Ob. CONV 57,2 58,0 55,7 57,4 55,8 56,9 58,6 Ob. CONV (without Basilicata) 57,2 57,8 55,6 57,3 55,8 57,0 58,6 Ob. CRO 41,1 39,3 36,6 40,0 39,5 40,0 41,7 Ob. CRO (without Sardinia) 39,1 37,3 34,9 38,3 38,4 38,6 40,7 Source: Istat, Rilevazione continua sulle forze di lavoro. Strictly related to this topic, then, it has to be reminded that labour market and social policies may play a significant role in determining this scenario: in particular, social security cushions (ammortizzatori sociali) are not effective in fostering a reintegration in the labour market, while on the opposite sometimes inducing self-exclusion; concerning labour market flexibility, recently realized reforms (Treu reform, 1997, Biagi law, 2003) have partially produced a shift of labour demand toward young not toward older workers; moreover, the collective bargaining system is still rather centralized. Therefore, it is unfit to account for differences in the labour market framework among areas and to balance asymmetric disequilibria. In addition, rurality does not seem to be per se an obstacle able to preventsjob creation. In fact, a pleasant natural and cultural environment, with lower level of congestion, if well connected to main economic centres can attract investments and economic activities. The most severe occupational problems affect, besides urban suburbs, the remote rural areas usually scarcely populated and situated far from urban centres. This areas, often characterized by a mountainous landscape, typically present a more aged population, lack in infrastructures and services, low per-capita income, unskilled labour, prevalence of subsistence agricultural activities and less job opportunities. Given the lack of rural-specific analyses about long term unemployment in rural areas, a recent work implemented in the district of Bari (Apulia) by IPRES, Italia Lavoro and Collocare (2005) provides some interesting findings about the phenomenon of long-term unemployment among adult workers by considering social and normative as well as economic factors which represent the labour market as a complex system in which different kind of forces interact. Concerning the supply side, the Authors note that most of adult long term unemployed persons in that area seem not willing either to move or to accept vertical career mobility. In addition, the propensity to undertake training programmes is not low, but many would undergo them only under given condition. Moreover, favoured channels for job searching are informal and a direct correspondence between active job searching and reception of job offers does not appear either 42. On the demand side, firms (small and agricultural firms are not considered ) declare to be willing to hire adult longterm unemployed only if these last are highly skilled and/or expert administrative personnel and trained. Moreover, they would be willing to offer typical and permanent contracts to this typology rather than flexible contractual solution. This is evidence of the existence of a mismatch between demand and supply. This dichotomy could be overcome through ad-hoc training programs for which firms are not often willing to pay and workers to attend. A deeper mismatch would be created by the difference in selection procedures of firms and informal channels of job searching used by unemployed people. Therefore the low matching between demand and supply could depend also on the low efficiency of official matching services (Servizi per l impiego) and the lack of information about firms actually willing to hire and people willing to supply labour 43. Finally, nearly all of the firms declare to be favourably disposed to hire adult unemployed under the condition of benefiting of relieves on social security contributions. Law 448/98 and law 448/01 have already recognized a reduction of social security contributions for employers hiring a long term unemployed; however, effects on employment have been mainly transitory. A further measure, which was partially aimed at relieving long-term unemployed, has been the Reddito Minimo di 233

38 Inserimento (means tested cash transfer), originally introduced in an experimental form with the general purpose of tackling poverty and social exclusion (DLgs 237/98). This test lasted two year and involved 39 communes, 24 of which in the South, families and individuals. It was given a form of a sort of negative tax recognizing a 75% deduction to families with a maximum labour income equal to 358 euros. The base unit for eligibility was the family and one of the requirements to access the benefit was the registration in the list of unemployed and the compulsory participation to local reintegration schemes and training activities. RMI was originally aimed at substituting and summarizing the multitude of social benefits characterizing the Italian social safety net; unfortunately, despite the encouraging results recorded in many areas, the actual implementation of this programme has been interrupted in 2001 by Centre-right government, probably fearing discouraging effect of this measure on labour supply. Notes 32 It has to be noticed that the proposed indicators are not indices of social exclusion that take account of all the dimensions of the phenomenon (i.e., access to the labour market, health, education, social participation, etc) (Eurostat, 2005). 33 These indicators capture partly the availability of economic resources and partly preferences and consumption patterns. The survey try to net out the preference component, but given a certain level of reserve by people in admitting acute economic problems, the level of deprivation can result underestimated (ISTAT, 2004). 34 Moreover, reclassifying data on social protection according to the criteria adopted by the Onofri Commission, from 1997 to 2006 social spending directly supporting family has not changed its weight in the total social expenditure, rather it has decreased from 3.5% to 3% of GDP. However, this fall has been partly offset by the increase in tax allowances on personal income taxation (IRPEF) and by transfers to families, confirming once again the basic structure of social spending to households, more cash-transfers oriented rather than in-kind interventions. 35 The per capita social expenditure on households in 2004 was about 147 euros in Emilia-Romagna, but just 27 euros in Calabria (Ministero della Famiglia, 2007). 36 For the definition of rural households see section The sample includes just working population and retired persons. These individuals are included in the total of Italian and rural households implying an undersized percentage weight for the class over Relative poverty incidence among old people could be overestimated due to consumption based definition adopted by ISTAT. In fact old people tend to have a lower level of consumption compared to younger people. 39 This phenomenon of loneliness is particularly widespread among women due to the higher average life duration. 40 Usually, a long term unemployed is defined as a person looking for a job for at least 12 months. 41 Especially for this group the divide between unemployment and inactivity is rather tenuous. Youngsters stay for long in their households who provide their income while they search for a job corresponding to their aspiration (Boeri et al. 2000). 42 These findings seems implying a significant rigidity in labour supply for this group in line with the insider-outsider theory. 43 Perhaps firms did not answer genuinely, informal signaling being still important in these areas but probably a more meritocratic and direct selective criterion is emerging. 234

39 6. Conclusions Rural areas appear to perform worse than urban ones according to many indicators, especially with regard to the labour market (such as the employment rate, youth unemployment ratio and long-term unemployment). Concerning socio-economic features of rural households, housing conditions and demographic indicators do not display any significant difference between rural and urban areas. The devolution of many tasks to regional authorities implied a decentralised management of community programmes for rural areas, with a consequent significant fragmentation and a regional diversification of policy strategies. Concerning the evaluation of the past experience, the high fragmentation of rural policy has pointed out several shortcomings for the Italian programming system, in terms of: 1) national co-ordination; 2) weaknesses in regional bargaining power; 3) lack of coordination among different programmes, particularly in the case of Objective 1 regions. Most of the rural development policies still keep a marked sectoral connotation, and they hardly toil to become transversal and territorial based policies. Most of the interventions in rural areas are incentives for farms, while other important actors such as wage agricultural workers - more exposed to the risk of poverty than farm households - have marginally benefited from these policies. 235

40 7. References Anania e Tenuta (2006), Ruralità, urbanità e ricchezza nelle Italie contemporanee in AgriRegioni Europa, numero 7, anno 2, pp Boeri, T., Layard, R. and Nickell, S. (2000), Welfare-to-Work and the Fight Against Long-term Unemployment, Department for Education and Employment, Research Report, 206. Bosi, P., (2007), Famiglia e welfare, paper presented at Conferenza Nazionale della Famiglia, Firenze, May 24th-26th Brandolini, A., Cipollone, P. (2003) Urban Poverty in Developed Countries In Y. Amiel and J. A. Bishop (eds.), Inequality, Welfare and Poverty: Theory and Measurement, Volume 9, pp Oxford: Elsevier Science, 2003 Brunori G. (1994), Spazio rurale e processi globali: alcune considerazioni teoriche, in Panattoni A., ed., La sfida della moderna ruralità, CNR-RAISA, Pisa. Camaioni, B. (2007), Dove vanno gli aiuti diretti della PAC. Una grande fetta per pochi, In Agriregionieuropa, Numero 9, Anno 3. Camaioni, B., Ripanti, R. (2007), Sviluppo rurale: a che punto siamo? In Agriregionieuropa, Numero 9, Anno 3. Campennì A. (2006), Sviluppo rurale integrato ed esclusione sociale, in Cavazzani A., Gaudio P., Sivini S., eds, Politiche, governance e innovazione per le aree rurali, Napoli, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2006, pp Chelli, F. (2006), I lavori della commissione Istat sulle metodologie per la classificazione del territorio in Agriregionieuropa Numero 4, Anno 2. Colazilli, G., Salvioni, G. (2004) Redditi, consumi e ricchezza delle famiglie agricole e rurali italiane XLI Convegno SIDEA Diritto all alimentazione, agricoltura e sviluppo Roma, settembre Colazilli, G., Salvioni, G. (2005) How s the agricultural family doing?, paper presented at 11st International Congress of the European Association of Agricultural Economists, Denmark, August Commissione di indagine sull esclusione sociale (2004), Rapporto sulle politiche contro la povertà e l esclusione sociale, Anno Distaso M. (1995), Rapporti tra agricoltura, industria e artigianato, in SIDEA, Lo sviluppo del mondo rurale, Bologna, Il Mulino, pp EAPN (2006), The National strategy reports on social protection and social inclusion: What do they deliver for people in poverty?. European Commission, (2007), Growing regions, growing Europe, Fourth report on economic and social cohesion, May European Commission (2006), Employment in Rural Areas: closing the jobs gap, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, Brussels, December European Commission, (2006), Rural development in the European Union, statistical and economic information Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development. European Commission (2007), Rural development programmes , Country profile, Italy, Agricultural and Rural Development Commission. EUROSTAT (2005) Income poverty and Social exclusion in the EU-15, Statistics in Focus, Population and Living Condition 13/2005. EUROSTAT (2005) Social protection expenditure and receipt , Eurostat Statistical Book. EUROSTAT, (2005), Material deprivation in the EU, Statistics in focus, population and social condition, 21/2005 Gaudio G. (2007), La politica UE di sviluppo rurale: evoluzione, compiti e principi, seminario presso il Dipartimento di Sociologia e Scienza Politica, Università della Calabria, 6-7 marzo INEA (2004), Politiche agricole nell Unione Europea. Rapporto IPRES, Italia lavoro e Collocare, (2005), Rilevazione ed analisi del fenomeno della disoccupazione di lunga durata ai fini di implementare politiche curative, Progetto IDEA Terra di Bari. IRS, Fondazione Zancan e CLES (2001), Valutazione della sperimentazione dell istituto del Reddito Minimo di Inserimento, analisi e valutazioni tematiche della sperimentazione, Roma, maggio. ISTAT (2004), Statistiche in breve. La povertà relativa in Italia nel 2003, 13 ottobre ISTAT (2007), Statistiche in breve. La povertà relativa in Italia nel ISTAT (2006), Statistiche in breve. I consumi delle famiglie Anno 2005, 28 luglio ISTAT (2006), Statistiche in breve. I consumi delle famiglie Anno 2006, 5 luglio ISTAT, (2006), La povertà relativa in Italia nel 2005, Statistiche in breve. ISTAT, (2007), La povertà relativa in Italia nel 2005, Statistiche in breve. ISTAT, (2006), Reddito e condizioni di vita. Indagine sulle condizioni di vita-anno ISTAT, (17 gennaio 2008), Reddito e condizioni di vita. Indagine sulle condizioni di vita -Anni Lucatelli, S. (2006), Lo sviluppo dei territori rurali nel Documento Strategico Preliminare Nazionale, Continuità, discontinuità, priorità per la politica regionale in Agriregionieuropa, Numero 4, Anno 2. Lucatelli S., Monteleone A., Valutazione e Sviluppo delle Aree Rurali: un approccio integrato nella valutazione delle 236

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42 Annex - Example of Good Practices 238

43 239

44 240

45 241