"Italian middle class is very homogenous and stable, among the less indebted in the world." Its rise started 50 years ago after the Second World War.
Industrialization and progress spread wealth quickly, leading families to purchase their first property -- houses.
"In our country, the family is considered as a sort of joint-stock company that has learned to save money in good times so as to have it at hand in bad ones," he noted.
Italian middle class is divided into two categories: the white collars with a fixed job and salary and the independent professionals including artisans, retailers and entrepreneurs.
The first group has greater job stability but has seen a slow rise in income in the past years due to the effects of globalization. The professionals have enjoyed higher income rises thanks to their dynamism and capacity to innovate.
Roma went on describing the conditions of Italy's middle class: an average monthly salary between 2,000 and 4,000 euros (2,750 to 5,500 U.S. dollars), a house (only 12 percent pay a mortgage) per family, with 15 percent owning a second vacation house, two cars and total savings ranging from 40,000 to 100,000 euros (55,000 to 137,560 U.S. dollars) for every family.
Roma also lamented a lack in long-term policies for supporting the middle class youth in Italy. "The risk is that the future generations will not have the same quality of life as their fathers, and many stay at home and become economically independent until very late. This could be an obstacle for the progress of Italy's middle class," he said.
