Italy has received an encouraging piece of economic news. Income inequality has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade. Yet behind that improvement lies a less reassuring figure: almost one in four Italian children remains at risk of poverty.
The contrast matters because it reveals something that aggregate economic indicators can easily obscure. A country can become more equal without becoming sufficiently prosperous or secure for the people living in it.
According to new Eurostat figures, Italy’s Gini coefficient — the standard measure of inequality in the distribution of disposable income — declined from 32.2 in 2024 to 31.0 in 2025. It is the country’s lowest reading since 2014.
The development was highlighted by Corriere della Sera in its 24 October article on inequality and poverty, drawing on figures published by Eurostat.
A lower Gini coefficient means that income is distributed more evenly. On that measure, Italy has made meaningful progress. The country has also narrowed the distance separating it from the European Union average, which stood at 29.2 in 2025, down slightly from 29.4 a year earlier.
But the gap has not disappeared. Italy remains more unequal than the EU as a whole, despite the improvement.
The number that changes the story
The most revealing figures concern children.
In Italy, 23.2% of people under the age of 18 are at risk of poverty, compared with an EU average of 19.6%. The Italian figure has fallen from 24.5% in 2019, but the difference remains substantial.
These are measures of relative poverty, not a count of children living in absolute deprivation. Eurostat defines the threshold in relation to a country’s median disposable income, meaning that the measure identifies households whose resources fall significantly below the national norm.
That distinction is important, but it does not make the figures any less relevant. Relative poverty can translate into sharply unequal access to educational opportunities, extracurricular activities, adequate housing and the ordinary experiences through which children participate in society.
For Italy, this raises a question that is more demanding than whether the latest statistics represent an improvement: how much economic insecurity should a relatively wealthy European country consider acceptable among its youngest residents?
Equality and prosperity are not the same thing
The apparent contradiction between falling inequality and persistent poverty is not really a contradiction at all.
The Gini coefficient describes the distribution of income. It does not tell us whether incomes are high enough to meet households’ needs, how readily families can absorb unexpected costs, or whether younger generations can improve their circumstances.
Two countries may have similar levels of inequality while offering very different living standards. Likewise, a country can register a more even income distribution even as many households continue to struggle.
In 2025, Italy’s overall at-risk-of-poverty rate stood at 18.6%, compared with 16.3% across the European Union. The improvement in income distribution therefore coexists with a comparatively high proportion of residents whose incomes remain below the relative poverty threshold.
Italy’s challenge is not simply to narrow the distance between the highest and lowest earners. It is also to improve the economic position of households that have too little income to begin with.
What the next set of numbers should tell us
Eurostat’s latest release deserves recognition for showing a genuine improvement. It would be misleading to dismiss a reduction in income inequality simply because other problems persist.
But the opposite mistake would be to treat a better national average as evidence that those problems are being resolved.
Future assessments should examine the indicators together: income distribution, poverty risk, the position of children and the extent to which public policies improve household finances. Each answers a different question, and none provides a complete picture on its own.
Italy is becoming somewhat more equal in the statistical sense. Whether that progress translates into more secure lives — particularly for children — remains a separate and more consequential test.
THE ITALIC View
There is a difference between a society becoming more equal and a society becoming fairer to those who start life with the fewest advantages. Italy’s improving inequality figures are welcome, but they should prompt closer examination of the people still left behind. A reduction in statistical disparities is progress; the ability of children to grow up without persistent economic insecurity would be a much stronger measure of success.