Young People between North and South of Italy: What Opportunities from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan? First Evidence

As is known, young Italians have been living a particularly difficult situation for some time. The Covid-19 pandemic worsened their living conditions, making the transition to adulthood even more complicated. In this context, the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) – developed by the Italian government to revitalise the country in the post-pandemic phase – could represent a great opportunity to reduce the disadvantage of young people. The present work, of a purely informative nature, aims to analyse the contribution of the actions contained in the NRPV to the improvement of the conditions of young people, offering a territorial interpretation. In particular, the work first aims to provide a concise picture of the situation of young people in the Italian regions. Therefore, the analysis of specific aspects of the youth condition was carried out with the implementation of descriptive statistics relating to specific indicators appropriately identified for this first evaluation phase. On the basis of these indicators, the measures of the Plan have been identified which can contribute directly to the linkage and thus have an impact on young people. The identification of these measures is mainly based on a textual search in the description of each measure, which shows the direct allocation of resources to young people and the verification of at least one milestone and/or target explicitly linked to this population segment. This method of analysis has made it possible to identify eleven measures (between investment and reforms), in respect of which a quantitative analysis has been made of the regional distribution of economic resources which, until December 2023, have been allocated to these measures by the PNRR, verifying the consistency between the identified gaps and the action of the PNRR. The results provide initial evidence of the spatial allocation of these resources in favour of young people, on efficient, but above all effective, use of planned resources, which, taking into account intergenerational relations, contribute to the removal of socio-economic and territorial inequalities.