You can look at it from different angles, but the result remains almost identical. Campania is experiencing a social emergency that has lasted over the years and even the slight and partial improvements do not lead to optimism. The indicators relating to the social sphere – from unemployment to birth rates, from school dropouts to healthcare spending, passing through poverty and violence against women – provide a highly worrying picture.
THE RISK OF POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION. According to the Eurostat Annual Report on Living Conditions in Europe, Campania and Calabria are among the top four regions in Europe with the highest share of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion. In 2022, Campania had the second highest figure in Europe, after South-East Romania, with 46.2 percent, compared to a European average of 21.6. According to Istat statistics on poverty, Campania stands at 22.1 percent, second only to Calabria (31.6).
THE EMPLOYMENT EMERGENCY. So much poverty is grafted onto an absolutely precarious employment situation. From 2020 to 2022 there was an increase in the employment rate in all geographical areas of the country (Italy 60.1 percent), but the basic differences remain. Campania with 43.4 percent presents even lower values than the average of the South, with an incidence lower than 3.3. Campania, Calabria and Sicily depict a labor market with enormous difficulties and extremely far from the trend of the rest of the nation. Looking at the unemployment rate, in 2023 the region drops to 17.1 percent, compared to 19.7 the previous year, still very far from the national average of 8.1%. A young Campanian between 15 and 34 years old (33.4) neither studies nor works, compared to 19.5 on a national scale. The disparity between male and female employment is enormous: in Campania the gender difference is equal to 25.9 percentage points (EU data 10.7 percent, Italy data 18.1). The absolute value is also alarming: the percentage of employed women in Campania stops at 30.6 percent, against the national 51.1 and the European 69.3.
THE PROBLEM OF SCHOOL DROPOUT AND HOUSING DEPRIVATION. The school dropout rate is 16.1 percent (10.4 in Italy, Open-Polis 2023 data), while for every 100 children between the ages of zero and two there are 9.9 places in nursery schools, compared to 26 in Italy. Campania also has the highest rate of housing deprivation, with 3.1 percent compared to 2.5 on a national scale.
HEALTHCARE EXPENDITURE. Another sore point comes from public health expenditure per capita, which is 2,115 euros, against an average of 2,329 euros. Expenditure for social interventions and services is almost a third compared to the Italian average, or 66 euros against 158 euros.
THE DEMOGRAPHIC DECLINE. The 2023 regional dossier on poverty, edited by Caritas Campania, reports a 4.2 percent drop in the population from 2012 to 2023. Even in the first 6 months of last year the decline is confirmed and for the years to come the forecasts are even worse. The demographic decline involves all areas of the country, but seems to have a greater impact on Campania and the South in general, because the decline in the birth rate is accompanied by the phenomenon of migration, both internal and abroad, which contributes to a negative change in the panorama demographic.
THE DATA ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. The trend relating to violence against women, which had seen a boom during the pandemic period, but which still remains extremely worrying today, is of further alarm. Based on the figures of the Observatory established in the Regional Council, in 2023 8% of feminicides committed in Italy occurred in Campania (there were eight victims in 2021 and five in 2022). In 2024 there are already three cases registered, one in Naples and the other two in the provinces of Salerno and Avellino.
