Share of Southern Italian household in the top 20% Italian Households by level of expenditure, as of 2010 (click to enlarge)
This is statistician’s jargon. Anyway, it means this: take the 20% of Italian households that have the highest level of expenditure (buy more phones, spend more on cars, whatever). Only 7% of Southern Italian households are in that group. This means that there’s quite a large level of inequality in Southern Italy, and wider than in Northern Italy. Quite consistently with the fact that they have a lower work participation rate, Southerners are even small spenders, which means that there’s a smaller retail market in those regions, which are, therefore, less attractive for retail businesses. Has anyone thought of changing the situation somehow? Not in the least, and as the crisis struck, the gap in this area as well has widened.
