The Crisis and Italian Families

Abstract

1. IntroductionThe information that follows is taken from the main sources of statistics available (e.g. Findomestic, Istat), and in particular from the annual surveys which have been conducted by the Observatory on the consumption of families (OSCF) (University of Verona) in Italy, on a sample of about 2,000 residents for a number of years. The overall scenario in which the reflections that follow are situated is that of a society which, like many others in Europe, has found itself in about a decade, going from a style of affluent and carefree consumption to a rational and limited one, with the need for consumers to reduce their purchases and defend, at the same time, their previous lifestyle (% food products in annual expenditure: 2009: 18.9; 2013: 19.5; source: Istat - Italian National Institute of Statistics - 2014).It has been a gradual process, with some peaks, as we will show in the following pages, which has slowly transformed not only the purchasing style of the majority of Italian families, but also the overall approach to consumption, with the spread of anti-waste, ecological, conscious and critical consumption ideologies. These were movements in the making even before the start of the recession, but which have given the effort of scaling down that families have had to make, an ideal support that has reduced the perception of impoverishment, emphasizing the ethical and political side of the restrictions and the limitations adopted as time passed. These ideologies, from being minority and marginal, have gradually become majority and dominant. Again from the cultural point of view, this has been entwined with the drive towards the natural and organic, with the promise of a better quality and therefore of a qualitative defence of the lifestyle, despite the quantitative reduction, also because the cost of organic products is significantly higher than that of ordinary products. The defence of quality was the line of resistance taken by most families, compensating with this attitude the objective need to reduce the overall volume of purchases. Naturally, this reduction, as will be seen below, has had a highly diversified effect in the different sectors of commodities. With this effort, the level of skill of families and also the time they dedicate to shopping, in particular to selecting products and stores, necessarily increased. Again in the logic of the defence of quality, some branded products have resisted in the shopping basket of many families, who have tried not to abandon the usual brands to which they attributed a certain guarantee for the quality of the products. As we will see this was the strategy of most of the families. Unfortunately, there nevertheless exists a quota, which is still growing, of families who have had to reduce both the quantity and the quality of their shopping basket, with a net negative impact on their lifestyle, of an average of about 30%. In the defence of the quality and reorganization of their lifestyle, many families have adopted strategies which are also contradictory, increasing their use of mass retail, but for some products keeping the specialized point of sale, the brand, organic etc.. By reducing in general the volume of purchases and their lifestyle but protecting, at the same time, with greater attention to the quality of a limited range of products, considered of particular significance and importance for the self-perception of the care and well-being of the family.Overall, the economic crisis has accentuated the differences both between social classes and between the socio-economic areas of the country. If the crisis has fragmented the middle class, pushing a part of it towards purchasing habits and a lifestyle that are definitely lower than those it enjoyed in the past, on the local level, it has accentuated the differences that already existed in the past. In this regard we can mention the situation of northeastern Italy, an area where targeted surveys were carried out by the Observatory. …