In 2023 "the increase in the number of employed people aged between 20 and 64 continues (+404,000 units, +1.8% compared to 2022), although with a slight slowdown compared to the previous year" and the employment rate "reaches 66.3% (+1.5 percentage points compared to 2022), exceeding that of 2019 by 2.7 percentage points". We can read this
in the eleventh edition of Istat's Report on Fair and Sustainable Wellbeing (Bes)
, presented today. Growth is stronger in the working scenario, it is underlined, "among women (+1.6 percentage points, +1.3 among men) and in the South (+1.7 percentage points, compared to +1.4 in the North and +1.2 in the Centre)", furthermore, compared to 2022. "The employment rate increased especially among those aged over fifty-five (+2.3 percentage points) and among those aged 25-34 (+2 percentage points), exceeding for the latter, the pre-pandemic levels are more than 5 percentage points", highlights the dossier.
Life expectancy in Italy is rising, amounting to 83.1 years in 2023
As of December 31st, life expectancy in our country "is equal to 83.1 years, an increase compared to 2022 (82.3)", a figure which "almost completely recovers the 2019 level (83 .2 years)": in particular, "men with 81.1 years of expected average life return to the same level as in 2019, while for women (85.2 years) there are still 0.2 years left (85.4 in 2019 )".
"
Life expectancy in good health in 2023 is equal to 59.2 years and is reduced compared to 60.1 years in 2022
", states the text, and "this reduction has brought the indicator back almost to the 2019 level ( 58.6 years), reducing the anomalous increase that occurred between 2020 and 2022 due to the subjective component, as a result of the more widespread perception of good health conditions in times of pandemic", indicates the Institute of Statistics. In 2021, the dossier continues, in the Peninsula "the cancer mortality rate of the adult population aged 20-64 years is equal to 7.8 per 10,000 residents and has reduced compared to what was observed in 2020 (8.0 per 10,000 residents)".
However, "socioeconomic inequalities are also observed for cancer mortality in the adult population, with a disadvantage that increases as the level of education decreases", and "they are more marked in males, where less educated individuals have a mortality rate 2.1 times greater than the most educated, in females this ratio drops to 1.4", we read further.
General well-being increases but the climate and security worsen
General well-being is growing
in our country: just over half of the 129 indicators (out of 152) for which comparison is possible, in fact, ISTAT indicates, "have improved compared to the previous year, 28.7% is up worse levels and 17.8% is stable". Less positive, however, is the 'performance' on the environmental (particularly climate) and security fronts (especially for the perception of the risk of crime in the area in which one lives).
Looking at the territories of the Peninsula, the dossier, "classifying the regions into five classes of relative well-being (low, medium-low, medium, medium-high and high)", highlights how those of the North-East "are characterized by the highest levels of well-being, with over half of the indicators in the two highest classes and no more than a fifth in the two bottom classes", while "for the regions of Southern Italy the situation is reversed, with over 55% of the indicators in the low and medium-low (around 70% in Campania and Sicily)". And we can then observe how the indicators relating to the landscape and cultural heritage and to social relations are significantly worsening.
The number of people who give up medical visits and tests is increasing, there are 4.5 million
In 2023 , around
4.5 million citizens had to give up medical visits or diagnostic tests due to economic problems
, waiting lists or access difficulties, 7.6% of the population, an increase compared to 7.0% in 2022 and 6.3% in 2019, probably due to the recovery of healthcare services deferred due to Covid-19 and difficulties in effectively reorganizing healthcare.
According to the data, there is a doubling of the share of those who renounced due to waiting list problems (from 2.8% in 2019 to 4.5% in 2023), while the renouncement for economic reasons is stable (from 4.3% in 2019 to 4.2% in 2023), but still increasing compared to 2022: +1.3 percentage points in just one year. Hospital emigration outside the region also returns to pre-Covid levels: in 2022, 8.3% of hospitalizations under ordinary acute care. Basilicata, Calabria, Campania and Puglia are the regions with the greatest outgoing flows not compensated by incoming flows; in Sicily and Sardinia, although the hospital emigration index is low, it is much higher than the hospital immigration index.
The share of elderly people assisted in integrated home care (ADI) continues to increase, from 2.9% in 2019 to 3.3% in 2022, but there remains strong territorial variability: from 3.8% in the North-East to 2 .6% in the South. If we also consider residential care, the North-East remains the area with the highest level of care for frail elderly people (6.2% in 2021) and the South with the lowest (2. 8% in 2021).
Equality index: men still more satisfied with life than women
In Italy, the gap between men and women in terms of satisfaction with life continues to increase: if, in fact, "in 2019 the difference between the percentage of 'very satisfied' and 'very satisfied' was 2.6 points,
in 2023 it reaches 3.9 points with 48.7% of the male component declaring themselves 'very satisfied', compared to 44.8% of the female component
. And "the parity index, given by the ratio between the percentage of women and men who are very satisfied with life, stands at 0.92 in 2023".
"For the other indicators of subjective well-being - we read - the gender gap remains almost unchanged with a parity index of 0.94 for satisfaction with free time and 0.87 for the positive opinion on future prospects". The population with lower educational qualifications, the Institute of Statistics states, "in the last year of data updating, is at a disadvantage for 49 of the 60 indicators available for comparison" and "the gap is particularly marked for percentage of employed people who work from home, which in 2023 varies between 2.1% for people with at most a lower secondary school diploma and 27.4% of the most educated".
The employment gap remains "unchanged" between women (25-49 years) with at least one child between 0 and 5 years and those without children: the employment rate increases for both (+1.1 and +0.9 points respectively percentages) and the ratio between the two indicators remains substantially stable at 73.0 (an indicator value of 100 would indicate equality between the two rates)". Globally, observes Istat, "you look to the future with greater optimism if you are employed (37.5% say that your life will improve) and, in particular, if you are managers, entrepreneurs, freelancers, directors, managers , employees", however, the document highlights, "even among those looking for new employment, optimists are 37.7%".