(ANSA) - Rome, October 4 - Part of the 2008 budget is aimed at getting young Italians to overcome their legendary reluctance to leave the family home, Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa said on Thursday.
"Let's get these big babies out of the home," the minister told a parliamentary committee, drawing attention to funds set aside to help young adults pay the rent on a place of their own.
Padoa-Schioppa, who has just been appointed head of the International Monetary Fund's steering committee, is the latest in a string of Italian economists who have stressed the need to make the country's youth more independent-minded.
"We're encouraging young people to leave home. If they don't, they just stay with their parents, they don't get married and they don't become independent. This is an important idea," he said.
Italians live at home longer than any of their European Union peers except the Spanish. Taking the 25-29 age group as a sample, EU figures show that 56% still live with their parents, compared to 21% of Germans and just 5% of Swedes.
Defenders of young live-at-home Italians cite economic uncertainty, difficulties finding jobs and a scarsity of cheap accommodation.
According to one recent survey, most Italians believe the best age to leave home is 25 and see it is important for a variety of reasons, among them personal independence and a more carefree sex life.
But in the end the economic considerations often turn out to be the decisive factor when young people are weighing their options.
Another poll, by the Institute for Social Medicine, found that parents were in part responsible for their children's attitude. Less than a fifth believed offspring should leave home once they turned 18.
Padoa-Schioppa's remarks on the need to encourage young people to swap comfort for independence came as he presented the government's 10.7-billion-euro budget package to a parliamentary committee.
"HOME FOR EVERYONE" PLAN.
The money to help young people pay rent is to come out of the same two billion euros set aside for a cut in housing taxes for Italians in lower wage brackets.
These two measures are part of Premier Romano Prodi's 'A home for everyone' plan, which aims to make affordable accommodation available to all Italians.
Other measures in the budget include the earmarking of half a billion euros for the construction of more public housing and the extension of tax breaks for renovation work on homes.
In other key areas of spending, the 2008 budget earmarks over a billion euros to help revamp the national railways system, 1.3 billion for the welfare system and 2.3 billion for pay rises for public sector employees.
The new spending has been financed partly by savings in administration costs but also by booming tax returns.
The draft budget has been welcomed by big business in the country because it includes a cut in the main corporation tax (IRES), which falls from 33% to 28%, and also another a cut in the regional business tax (IRAP), which drops to 3.9% from 4.25%.
