NEW URBAN POVERTY AND THE CRISIS IN THE CITIZENSHIP/WELFARE SYSTEM: THE ITALIAN EXPERIENCE

The paper deals with the working hypothesis and preliminary empirical research on longitudinal analysis of the new urban poor in large Italian cities. It begins by considering existing welfare provisions in Italy and the reasons why they are inadequate to the needs of the new urban poor, who are segments of an increasingly heterogeneous population hit by an accumulation of specific disadvantages, such as the socially isolated elderly with serious health problems, poorly educated young people with a low income family background, long-term unemployed adults who become in some areas professionally unemployable, migrants isolated from both local and fellow-countrymen networks. The paper then presents a preliminary analysis of data indicating the different typologies of new poverty in northern and southern Italian cities and discusses the problems raised for the Italian welfare system by the extension of these phenomena.