The longevity achieved by the population in our country, together with the change of family structures, makes great help from often foreign collaborators. But there are less and less.
In the shade of the holidays, between low cost departures and dead and run holiday resorts, a silent exodus that nobody speaks is underway. He sees carers – mostly foreign – who leave our country, abandoning in total discouragement, aggravated by the summer heat, thousands of families.
Just like Marilena Torre, 54 -year -old Emilian, who finds himself dealing with his ninety -year -old mother who is not self -sufficient and with a caregiver who “gave me up from one day to the next”. “He had lived at home with my mom Rita for ten years,” continues Marilena. «Obviously everything in order. Fifteen days ago she told me that her daughter was pregnant, that she was not well and that she needed her. He apologized so much, but he brought the suitcases and left. From one day to the next. Infischiating of the contractual obligations and what had become a stable affection for my mother ». The continuation seems to belong to a well -known script: Marilena puts announcements everywhere, looking for ladies willing to move to the mother’s apartment, makes interviews. «But the answer is more or less always the usual: nobody is available for full time job. Many carers have a partner, or at least they don’t want to be available H24. The few that could be interested ask for astronomical figures because, aware of the very high request, they seek families who can afford up to two thousand euros per black per month ».
Salaries decidedly higher than the national average (according to the OECD, the gross annual salary is slightly more than 41 thousand euros, about 1,700 euros net per month), which reveal alarming paradoxes. «Not infrequently the carers do not want to be regularized to maintain low incomes and access benefits, other times families rely on irregular work, in the hope of saving on contributions, holidays and thirteenths. But then the disputes arrive », explains Andrea Zini, president of Assindatcolf (National Association of Domestic Employers) who recently presented a report in collaboration with the Center of Studies and Research IDOS, from which it emerges as within 2028 at least 86,000 more domestic workers will be needed than today. Not a few, considering that already today between housekeepers, carers and babysitters we are talking about 961 thousand workers regularly registered by INPS. Confirming constant and structural growth.
«These data are particularly significant because they show that you will have to intervene with long -term planning. Today 70 percent of domestic workers are foreign and about half come from non -EU countries. The only legal tool for getting them to Italy is the flow decree, but the annual shares have always been insufficient and the procedures are long and complex: they serve from 6 to 9 months to obtain a clearance and make a person operational », points out. «In this scenario, the great absent is the state that should take charge of a part of the cost of assistance. It is urgent to introduce a system of tax breaks structured: today only the contributions are deductible, but the total deductibility of the cost would be needed or, even better, a tax credit as happens in France, where the state reimburses 50 percent of the expenditure and regular work becomes the most convenient choice for everyone “, he adds. An initiative that perhaps could remedy the ongoing hemorrhage. Here too, on the other hand, the numbers speak for everyone. According to a recent parliamentary question presented by the center -right honorable Antonio De Poli, “a quarter of the 3 million” in black “workers present in Italy is employed in services to families, there are 781 thousand between homekens, carers and babysitters”, which obviously add to the audience of 961 thousand domestic workers regularly registered by INPS. “Excluding this strong component of irregularities from the labor market, the incidence of the submerged, which today in Italy is 12.9 percent of the total employees, would decrease by 3 percentage points”. A enormousness.
And if on the one hand there is the need to calm the “black” share with new policies and concessions, the other side of the medal tells us that, in the meantime, more and more carers leave Italy driven by the increase in the cost of life, from inflation, but also by the improvement of economic conditions in the countries of origin. Making a synthesis of the motivations is impossible. Certainly after the start of the war in Ukraine many decided to return home, perhaps to give assistance to the family. As many have chosen to look for a higher salary. As in Switzerland or Denmark, where the pay starts from 20 euros per hour.
But there is more. It is interesting to note that the escaped from Italy concerns above all professional figures who come from Eastern Europe (and represent 34.8 percent of the total today). In the last forty years, migrations above all from the ex -Soviet countries have significantly shaped the Italian submerged labor market: carers and housekeepers from Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Balkan countries have constituted a growing part and, in many cases, substitute for that local labor not easily found, especially in sectors characterized by low wages, flexible shirts and scarce formal control. But, as the population ages, they also age the carers.
Today the 55-59 age class is the one with the highest frequency, with a weight equal to 18.6 percent of the total, while 25.7 percent have an age equal to or over 60 years. It is an often underestimated element, which in anticipation, however, risks becoming a huge problem for both the pension system and the healthcare system.
“There is no generational change: there is no turnover, the workforce ages and, within a decade half of the current domestic workers, will be in retirement age,” Zini underlines.
An essential reflection then concerns the physical consequences of employment. As the Parliamentary of the Verdi Devis Dori notes in a recent parliamentary question, “according to a 2021 study, 63 percent of the carers said they had health problems related to work. According to a Censis survey, 44.3 percent of domestic collaborators in Italy was the victim of a domestic injury in 2009; while if you consider the entire professional life arch the percentage reaches 70.5 percent ». And all this must be read in relation to other data.
According to Istat in 2024, the average life expectancy in our country was 83.4 years with a growth of 5 months compared to 2023. Small inspiration for reflection: In 1950 in Italy it lived on average 65.7 years. In short, in 74 years we have earned about 20 years of existence (+27.6 percent) and we have become one of the countries with the highest life expectancy in the world. With all the consequences that this entails. «What should be a collective goal, that is to live longer, risks transforming into a failure, and this is because we are not prepared to manage it. It is a paradox that must be faced by different angles, starting from the most concrete and human one: the house. The domicile is the place where most of the elderly people want to remain, surrounded by their own things and affections. We need a profound reform, a long -term vision that puts the person in the center, supports families, enhances the care work – often done by women – and returns dignity to an essential sector for the future of our country “, reflects Zini.
In short, what is happening in the silence of the Italian houses risks having epochal dimensions. “It is not just the crisis of a sector, but the dismantling of a social balance based on the tacit custody of public functions to precarious foreign workers. And the question that is imposed, now that that invisible army is leaving the field, is if Italy is ready to face the void that leaves “, concludes Zini. More than legitimate question. And every day that passes more and more alarming.
