Intergenerational differences and conflicts during the pandemic crisis in Italy

Abstract

Introduction. The health, economic and social crisis caused by the Covid 19 pandemic in Italy has produced a wide range of consequences and reactions. It has favoured the re-emergence of intergenerational conflicts that had long been latent. The present article focuses on this phenomenon in depth and analyses the most salient results of a study conducted in the Emilia Romagna region. In this study, different generational groups were interviewed, from adolescents to adults and the elderly. Methodology. The study was performed in November 2020, in the days immediately after measures to contain the epidemic were introduced via governmental decree. Strict limitations to individual behaviour, school attendance and the possibility of exercising certain professions were announced. The opinions of young people, adults and the elderly were collected regarding: the Italian government’s decisions; the concept of health; social life; and behaviours relating to the respect or not of the restrictions. Based on the gathered data, the present work sought to highlight the generational specificities, commonalities and, above all, the elements of intergenerational conflict. Results. A picture emerged in which, alongside the shared admission that health – understood in its broadest sense of physical and psychological well-being – must be protected and defended, each generational group also considered its own demands as a priority. These demands were linked to the enjoyment of social life, to work needs and to their own specific health requirements. They also presented themselves as victims of rules and behaviours that were not very protective and that favoured, above all, other age groups. An excess of self-referentiality, which cut across all age groups, led to closing in on themselves and implosions, arousing conflicting positions. Discussion and conclusions. The reported opinions testify to the re-emergence of a hitherto underlying intergenerational conflict, stemming from the new generations’ difficulties regarding social mobility, but also from a culture of selfish hedonism. Until the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, this hedonism had been manifesting itself as a consequence of an ultraliberalism that puts the dimensions of «having» before that of «being», and the «individual» before the «community».