Episode Details

Luca: [00:00:00] I have drawn inspiration for today’s podcast from a survey that just came out

It’s about life satisfaction in Italy.

Anna: Mm-hmm.

Luca: It’s a little bit more complicated than that. It covers satisfaction with living. It covers particular parts of people’s lives, how happy they are with their relationship, with friends and with family and local healthcare.

And then it starts to get into topics that are more interesting to us as the purveyors of information to expats and retirees looking at Italy. For instance, how satisfied people are with pollution with crime. And then there’s some, there’s a couple of funny things, like how much people trust others.

There’s a little experiment about what percentage of people expect to get the wallet back if it was, uh, taken from there in the. Yes.

Anna: Okay. I saw a video about that. There are some people going in different cities. [00:01:00] I saw, so this girl went to Oristano. Sole 24 Ore said that it’s the safest. So she went there and she, she started running the wallet fell like three times and always sat there like, here’s your wallet. She did the same in Milan and there was like a disaster. So like that.

Luca: Okay, so in Sardinia people give you back your wallet, but in Milan they don’t.

Anna: Yeah, the crime is like, it’s the worst city all over Italy.

Luca: So this is very interesting data we got. It answers questions like, who’s got the biggest issue with pollution? Who complains the most about traffic? As it often happens, the most interesting part is that, uh, the real data destroys the stereotypes we have about Italy.

So I actually played a little game with the community of the Expats in Italy group on Facebook, and I asked them, in which part of Italy people complain the most about struggling to find parking? Apparently some people were upset because I [00:02:00] did not put Rome as one of the options.

Anna: That’s the answer that I gave you when you asked me what’s the worst city for parking. And I said, Rome, it’s not, you also

Luca: think it’s Rome?

Anna: I thought, yeah.

Luca: Okay. It isn’t. Actually, I’m not gonna tell you now, I’ll tell you at the end of the podcast, a reward for you to stay tuned. Why don’t we start with life satisfaction. Where do you think people are the happiest in Italy?

Anna: In Sardinia, I’d say, because I love Sardinia.

Luca: Some people said Tuscany, some people said Sicily. Yeah, but you are very wrong. The region where most people are highly satisfied with their lives is Trentino Alto Adige. With an average score of 7.1 out of 10. You know, it kind makes sense. It’s efficient, clean, wages are high. Apparently people don’t care too much about the sun and the beach when it comes to life satisfaction.

Anna: Yeah, they are organized. It’s beautiful. You [00:03:00] have nature, beautiful mountains.

Luca: What about the lowest life satisfaction related?

Anna: I would say in the south, but not the islands. Campania

Luca: Yes. You got this right in Campania, the region whose capital is Naples. Life satisfaction is at its lowest. Only about half of the people are happy with their lives. So that’s a bit sad, but still, 50% is not nothing. 55%. Let’s actually look at that experiment that you mentioned before.

Anna: Okay. The

Luca: I shopped my wallet scenario. The region where people trust the least the