from "The International Spectator"
Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI)
Volume XXXV, No. 2 April-June 2000
La popolazione italiana verso il 2000: storia demografica dal dopoguerra ad oggi
Bologna: il Mulino, c1999. - 168 p. - (Universale paperbacks). - ISBN 88-15-06246-7
An illustration of Italy's demographic transformation in the last fifty years from an agricultural to a post-industrial society, relating the laborious process to the main political and economic events of the period.
The authors point out that there was never a comprehensive demographic policy throughout the period in question - a phenomenon not exclusive to Italy - only ad hoc legislative measures (especially in the seventies) and some constants, such as the North-South divide and the central role of the family.
Today, Italy is the experimental laboratory of the broader European laboratory and, in tandem with it, is working out responses to the challenges to the new European social model. Some basic trends are evident: the need to reconcile economic liberalisation with social protection, ensuring such fundamental requirements as education, health care and employment. The task of this special laboratory, the authors conclude, is to make sure that the demographic and economic equilibria of the new Europe can be achieved using incentives and promotional instruments solidly within the sphere of freedom of choice, without having to resort to constrictive measures.