The Problems of Italian Youths

In different parts of the world, youths face a variety of challenges. The difficulties are compounded in Italy, where youths face a slew of issues that lead them to participate in activities that are illegal under Italian law. Various experiments have been performed in order to ascertain the root cause of the problems that young people face. As a result of the research conducted by several researchers, a range of factors were identified as having a major effect on the problems that youths in Italy face. For instance, lack of employment, training on specific skills, schooling, psychiatric problems and social distress, drug and substance abuse and poor housing conditions are examples of problems that mostly affect the youths in Italy (Edwards 12). Therefore, the main objective of this study is based on evaluating the most probable causes of the challenges the youths in Italy encounter.

Analysis of the Problems

To begin with, the economic calamity in Italy has a great impact on the day to day lives as well as social situations of the Italian youths. Studies show that a number of Italian youths lack job employment whether permanent or contract jobs that can enable them earn a living. The main reasons for the unemployment have been linked to various reasons (Enzo Colombo, and Paola 1041). Firstly, the kind of contracts in which people of young age labor with. Italy is known to carry on a twofold type of labor market and unlike the veteran firm insiders who lasting and inflexible contracts are reserved for, the youths are given contracts that are temporary whereby in case some workers are to be discontinued from work, they are the ones to go first. Secondly, some of the Italian youths prefer higher education to working especially in cases of recession as a substitute to a touch job market.
Therefore, according to Centre for Economic Policy Research attributed the increased lack of employment rate among the Italian youths to their refusal to participate in the available jobs at the moment. Thirdly, the Italian youths fought to get into labor at the best of times. However, despite their struggle even during the periods when the Eurozone in general was rising, lack of employment, acquisition of specific skills through training and even education was still reported as a great problem in Italy. Another possible reasons as to the Italian youths are unemployed is due to low admission incomes, poor labor quality as well as dissemination of non-standard employment deals results in incompatibility between the specific skills required by various work markets and the knowledge learnt through formal training. As a result, the differences emerging between the demand of the labor and the educational quality directly determines the local economies performance than is the level of learning standard itself. In regards, lack of employment has led to low income among the Italian youths that cannot sustain their living standards. Also, according to research, the income earned by young men was slightly higher than the income earned by the young women. Similarly the income of the youths who had attained formal education was highly above though below the average than the income earned by those who did not have any formal education or rather trained and acquired any specific skills. Therefore, the low income led to poor living standards among the Italian youths forcing a number of them to engage in illegal actions like drug abuse due to frustrations. Furthermore, according to Edwards (15) the youths labored more than the elderly and instead receive low wages as compared to them. As a result, this greatly discouraged the youths making them fail to participate in labor activities and this results in a big challenge among the people of young age in Italy.
According to Ruspini (10-22), majority of the youths in Italy have multiple problems that stem from lack of proper training and formal education. The study conducted aimed at examining the number or percentage of youths who have opportunity to attend school or institutions of higher learning. The author revealed that more youths are affected by education disparity which stems from the inability of their families to support or finance their studies. As a result, the youths or families who are able to take their children to schools are those from a high social class. This has affected the education attainment by those youths from low social class since they are unable to raise the required fees to pay for their studies. In this regard, the difference between these groups of youths is a key challenge that affects more than 50% of the youths in Italy. Additionally, most of the youths are frustrated with the education system they can acquire. For instance, a number of them are not able to take the courses they want in life due to lack of money to get the education in modern courses that earn them direct jobs in the dynamic job market. As such, they end up pursuing cheap courses that do not link up with the demands of the current job market. Such youths end up as victims of education disparity, low education or literacy levels, and practical skills in life. Furthermore, lack of proper education has denied the youths the chance to cope up with the changes in the scientific application skills such critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making skills. For does youths who have acquired degrees, their earnings is estimated to be 9.46% while those without degrees earn 3.97%. This is an indication of low employment opportunities for even those youths who have gone to school (Enzo Colombo, and Paola 1031-1049). These skills are key for the growth and development of morally upright youths in the society. Therefore, Ruspini (10-22) concluded that lack of education is a key challenge for most of the youths and this contributes to more challenges associated to it.
Also, the youths are faced with psychological disorders and social distress. The social-psychological problems stem from the societal and moral challenges that are meant to direct youths in proper ways to inculcate good values. The consistent struggle by the youths in seeking for the factors that makes them maintain their social and emotional being. In this regard, the difficulty in finding jobs to earn a living is making the youths feel frustrated and thus end up being humiliated in life. This feeling affects majority of youth social and psychologically where they feel not fit to live in the society. Therefore, this stress affects many youths and makes them disappointed to a point of developing disorders. The disorders affects the life of the youths and hence make many of them vulnerable to health and psychological torture. These includes other associated problems such as insomnia, mental problems, loss of weight and appetite, poor memory, and social withdrawal. Most of the victims socially get affected in that they develop wrong moral behaviors in bid to counter the challenges or stress they undergo in life. This is attributed to by the rising economic crisis and lack of economic and social independence of the youths which leaves many of them helpless. This further calls for proper treatment of the youths so as to help them get out of the mental and social disorders. In this view, Di Fabio, Annamaria, and Maureen (48-59) posits that 5% of the youths in Italy are medically admitted in rehabilitation centres due to a number of disorders that emanate from the economic and social challenges they face in their lives. This poses an expense to the state and families of the victims so that they are treated by the psychiatrists. In addition to that, more than 800,000 youths in Italy aged between 15 and 24 years are being affected by depressive disorder due to heavy use of internet and thoughts about how to make a living amid inability to secure proper employment. This has led to increased cases of suicide in which Mourshed et al. (20-22) reveals that 8% of the deaths are due to suicide cases among the youths. Consequently, a number of then youths drop out of school due to mental illness. In such cases, many of the youths are interrupted from their day to day activities including drop in performance due to low cognitive prowess to handle their studies effectively.
Another problem faced by the youths in increased cases of drug, substance, and alcohol abuse. According to a number of researches done on the Italian youths, idleness and low economic growth has propagated a generation of youths who are living in a maze of substance and alcohol abuse. With such cases which originate from depression experienced by several youths who are unable make a living and thus opt to abuse drugs and alcohol so as to avert the reality of economic crisis on them. The problem of drug abuse has affected the youths since they are being faced with unemployment challenge so most of them are idle and this has contributed to this problem. Furthermore, drug abuse has posed several impacts on the lives of the youths in both social and health dimensions. For instance, the juveniles are unable to concentrate in their studies or doing something constructive in the society. For those who attend school, it’s believed that drug and substance abuse has led to an increase in failure and truancy. The victim students have become a social misfit due to disintegration of the moral fabric in the society. Also, their health has been affected drastically by the consumption of alcohol and other drugs in the region. This unethical behaviour portrayed by the youths has earned them no employment since they cannot be trusted with responsibility by the employers.
Furthermore, the youths face a problem of poor housing conditions in Italy. This is associated with single parent household which have been increasing to a level of being a big problem. Italy has registered an exponential growth in the number of single parent homes which suffers severe economic crisis. It’s estimated that more than 14million single parents have to a tune of 28 million children living in poor conditions due to high rates of poverty. In such scenario, raising the youths properly is difficult and they end up growing feeling dejected in the society (Di Fabio, Annamaria, and Maureen 53). Such youths always have a problem with coping up with the expected societal norms since they live in abject poverty. Poor housing conditions has been the reason why majority of youths in Italy join gang and criminal groups in bid to earn a living or improve their poor housing conditions. The competition between the basing needs and the general housing conditions is a reason for the laxity of youths in identifying themselves in the society as from such places. These places are considered as suburbs which no youth ones to be associated with. As such, they may end up living in denial and therefore join wrong groups in that cause unrest to the rest of the population who live in good housing conditions. The possibility of raising children in such regions is hard for single parents since they are unable to take the youths to school leaving majority of them in a maze of substance abuse and idleness. In addition to that, the demographic swings in Italy is responsible for the hustle and problems experienced by the youths. The population of the young population in Italy is twice that of the elderly and as a result many youths scramble for the available job opportunities and state resources. The state resources are limited and thus cannot support the growing population of the youths in the region. According to Modena, Francesca, and Concetta (23-38), majority of the youths are still leaving at home and they mostly stay in the South of Italy which is the suburbs. However, the youths who live in the North are few and they base in the city type of housing or environment. This idea is supported by Edwards et al. (35-70), they suggest that the two halves of Italy have different environment based on housing and the level of education. Therefore, the split has classified the youths into social classes and as a result they suffer from this social stratification.

Conclusion

Youths are the pillars of any country since they are the strongest and innovative group of people in the society. As such, for any society to excel in all domains of development be it economics, technology, agriculture, leadership, and security, youths play a key role. Countries that do not invest much resources on the youth empowerment programs will always drag behind and will be worst and insecure countries. This is due to increased security issues or crime rate. Youth employment programs are key in ensuring the challenges affected them are addressed amicably. More so, the level of education or the number of youths attending school determines the future development and growth of the youths in the society. As a result, Italy has a high ratio of youths as compared to the elderly who are unable to support themselves or pay fees for their studies. This is a key challenge that has to be addressed for the general development of Italy.

Works Cited

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