Italy, Effects of the Crisis across Generations

Dataset is from EUROSTAT on-line.

Real income is the median value of the real equivalised incomes of the households the person live in.

So, for example, for the age group 18-24 yrs., the Real income considered in the graph is the median value of all Real equivalised incomes of the households in which a person aged 18-14 live in.

Poverty rate is the Monetary Poverty rate. People are considered at risk of monetary poverty when the equivalised disposable income of their households (after social transfers) is below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. This is set at 60% of the national median equivalised disposable income after social transfers. For further explanations see also: Eurostat Glossary.

The graph. regards Italy and depicts the 2007-2015 change of the two variables with brakedown by age groups.

The crisis affected generations in a very asymmetric way:

1. Those aged 25-54were hit the most, followed by the youngsters (18-24);
2. Indeed, also those aged 55-64 experimented a huge rise in the Poverty rate, higher than the one of the aged 18-24, but at the same time they saw also a more favourable rise in the Real income;
3. For sure, those who never felt the crisis, and who found themselves even better off in the aftermath, are the elder, aged 65+.

Of course, the variables represent average "losses" and "gains", and obviously we should keep in mind that there is variability/variance within each age group.