Vulnerability to Poverty in Italy

The article empirically analyses the phenomenon of vulnerability to poverty – meant as an individual’s likelihood of becoming poor in the future. On the basis of studies conducted by the Italian Institute of Statistics on the consumption of Italian households in the years 1985-2001 and whose data have been rearranged in a pseudo-panel form, the article estimates the incidence of vulnerability to poverty at national and regional level. We find that potential poverty concerns an unexpectedly high percentage of the population – even as much as 50% in some years. Regional differences are broad, persistent and on the rise: moving from north to south, the risk of becoming poor in the future triples. Vulnerability analysis turns out to be a useful tool which should complement the traditional analysis of poverty.