Category Archives: Italy

If Obama Were President

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The mammone -- a jobless man in his 20s, 30s or 40s who lives with mamma -- is an Italian tradition. But under President Obama, labor force participation rates of young men have plunged to Italian levels. [Credit: studenti.it]

The mam­mone — a job­less man in his 20s, 30s or 40s who lives with mam­ma — is an Ital­ian tra­di­tion. Under Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, labor force par­tic­i­pa­tion rates of young Amer­i­can men have plunged to Ital­ian lev­els. [Cred­it: studenti.it]

In Italy, they call him a mam­mone: an unem­ployed man in his 20s, 30s or 40s who still lives with mamma.

The preva­lence of the mam­mone has long been thought to be a pre­dom­i­nant­ly Ital­ian phe­nom­e­non, with deep cul­tur­al roots.  It has grown more pro­nounced with the country’s recent eco­nom­ic dis­tress.  Since 2008, a grow­ing per­cent­age of Ital­ian men aged 25–54 have aban­doned the labor force, no longer both­er­ing even to look for work.

Italy’s work­force par­tic­i­pa­tion rate among men of prime work­ing age is by far Europe’s low­est.  But it is not the low­est in the devel­oped world.  Italy now shares that dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion with the U.S.

That wouldn’t hap­pen if Oba­ma were Pres­i­dent. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Black Year Of Italian Olive Oil

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The black year of Italian olive struck those who farm these verdant Umbrian slopes, a metaphor for the challenges facing Italy's variegated traditions. [Credit: italianfoto.com]

The black year of Ital­ian olive struck those who farm these ver­dant Umbri­an slopes, a metaphor for the chal­lenges fac­ing Italy’s var­ie­gat­ed tra­di­tions. [Cred­it: italianfoto.com]

Months before the har­vest, Enri­co sus­pect­ed the worst.  His grove of 700 olive trees had been sub­ject­ed to an unusu­al­ly cool and wet August, ide­al breed­ing con­di­tions for the Bac­tro­cera oleae, a fly that deposits its eggs beneath the skin of olives.  The late Octo­ber har­vest con­firmed his fears: the flies had laid waste to his crop.

Enri­co didn’t press any olive oil this sea­son.  He wasn’t alone.  Pro­duc­tion in Enrico’s region of Umbria is off 45 per­cent, slight­ly worse than the nation­wide 35 per­cent decline. La Repub­bli­ca has dubbed 2014 “the black year of Ital­ian olive oil.”  In a coun­try where each inhab­i­tant annu­al­ly con­sumes an aver­age of more than 26 pounds of the gold­en nec­tar, it is a seis­mic cul­tur­al event, one more reminder of the exis­ten­tial threats con­fronting Ital­ian tra­di­tions. Con­tin­ue read­ing →