Socio-Demographic Vulnerability: The Condition of Italian Young People

For a kind of inertia effect, today the Italian welfare state protects the older too much and, on the contrary, it does not counter sufficiently the new risks associated with other phases of life. Not much seems to be implemented in favour of Italian young people who, as a matter of fact, seem to suffer a lot from the present changes: young people remain longer in the parental home and postpone setting up their own independent life to a most advanced age. In order to understand the situation of vulnerability increasingly widespread among young people, it seemed more and more necessary an in-depth analysis of the reasons and the subjective status of the discomfort that affects young people because of a delayed transition into adulthood. Therefore, we studied the self-perceived vulnerability situation experienced by Italian young people in different spheres of their life. The aim was to understand what is the subjective status that prevents young people from planning an adult life, having a partner and possibly having a child. In particular our analysis tries to bring together theoretical and methodological methods in the measurement of socio-demographic vulnerability concept. In order to do that, we employed the Multiple Correspondence Analysis, using data provided by the Italian Multipurpose Survey, carried out in 2003 and named “Household and Social Actors”.     

Service and Life Quality: The Case of Palermo

The research aims at analysing the ``quality' of some services offered to the citizens by the Commune of Palermo. The data available were gathered thanks to a sampling survey carried out in October 1997. The sample is made up of 1008 residents in the city of Palermo and is proportionally stratified according to the quarter of residence. Information was gathered by means of a telephone questionnaire. The answering rate was rather high and a great interest in the subjects dealt was taken.The research wants to individuate the degree of efficiency of the Commune of Palermo, also at administrative level, with some questions concerning the municipal council, taking the expectations of the citizens of the city into account through an analytic survey of the indicators measuring the judgement of the citizen towards the main services. This result will be the starting point of an exhaustive analysis aiming at the individuation of the ``quality of life' in Palermo, which is tightly connected with the services offered.