POTENZA – A total of 2,083 people in Basilicata turned to Caritas for help last year. And 58.4% more women than 41.6% men turn to the branches in the Basilicata area. The incidence of people with children is high: around 79 percent as attested by the 2024 Report on poverty in Italy in 2023. The data relating to the increase in the average age of residents who have extended their hand in Basilicata should not be underestimated.
Over the last few years there has been a constant increase in the weight of the elderly which reaches the highest peaks in the region: 16.6 percent, preceded only by Campania 18.1%, followed by Puglia 15.4% and Sardinia 15, 3%. Among those assisted by Caritas, people with a lower secondary school diploma predominate (48.7%). But unlike graduates, 0.5% are those with a degree who saw the need to ask for help (3.5%).
Another factor that most of the assisted people have in common is employment fragility, the unemployed are 38.5% in Basilicata. However, it is not just the lack of work that drives people to turn to the 44 Lucanian listening centers where just under a thousand volunteers work: 14.6 percent are employed while 15.1% are housewives and 10% are pensioners. In particular, 90.5% of people demonstrate a state of economic fragility, linked to situations of insufficient income or total absence of income. 23.1% ask for help for health reasons, 13.9 for housing problems.
With 11.8 percent of people turning to Caritas offices because they have their own disability or that of a family member, Basilicata records the highest percentage of contacts compared to the other regions. And while in 2023 the share of new audiences visibly drops, going from 45.3% to 41.0% in Italy – a sign of a progressive easing compared to the pandemic phase – the incidence of the chronically poor followed for over 5 years stands at 32.4%, below Tuscany with 42% of those assisted.
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