Nearly one in two 18-34-year-olds – the equivalent of nearly 4.9 million young people in Italy – show at least one sign of deprivation, according to the analysis.

Education and employment are the areas in which young people show greatest difficulty, Istat added.

However, the proportion of people aged between 15 and 29 not in education, employment or training (NEET) has returned to close to the minimum level recorded in 2007, translating into about 1.7 million people aged between 15 and 29, or almost one fifth of the total in that age group.

In terms of NEET, Italy remains more than seven points above the EU average and is second only to Romania, Istat said.

The statistics agency also said that the “poverty trap” continues to be handed down from parents to their children.

In 2019, almost a third of people aged between 25 and 49 who were at risk of poverty came from families that were in a poor financial condition when they were 14 years old, said the annual report.

“Structural inequalities continue to represent a determining and discriminating factor in the opportunities that define people's social destiny,” Istat said.

Italy, it seems, is increasingly becoming a country for the elderly with the estimated number of over 100-year-olds having reached a record high, according to Istat.

“The strength of the link between the living conditions of young people and adults and those of their families of origin is not only an individual problem, but above all a collective one, given that in Italy 1.4 million minors are growing up in a context of absolute poverty,” it added.

According to Istat, “it is necessary to guarantee all children levels of well-being from birth that allow an adequate level of physical, cognitive, emotional and relational development”.

It is “crucial” that all children have equal access to opportunities regardless of their social and economic background in order to break the “vicious circle of poverty”, the agency added.

If Italy is not a country for young people, it is increasingly becoming one for the elderly with the estimated number of over 100-year-olds having reached a record high, according to Istat.

At the start of this year, there were 22,000 ultra-centenarians, or 2000 more than at the start of 2022, the agency said.

Women have consistently accounted for in excess of 80 per cent of the total number of over 100-year-olds since 2000, it added.

Istat also predicted that in 2041 there will be more than six million people aged over 80 in Italy, of whom 1.4 million will be aged over 90.

Elsewhere in its annual report, Istat said in Italy in 2021 the average gross annual salary was nearly €27,000, 12 per cent lower than the European Union average and 23 per cent lower than the German average at equivalent purchasing power.

Between 2013 and 2022, annual gross wages in Italy grew by 12 per cent, or around half of the European average.

Over the same period the purchasing power of wages in Italy fell by 2 per cent, while across the Union it grew by average of 2.5 per cent.

ANSA