(Il Corriere della Sera - Italy)

Aged from 15 to 35. No work, no studies. MILAN - "My name is Maria Elena Crespi, Malena for my one or two friends. I'm 23, I live just outside Milan and I don't work or study. Do I feel ashamed? No". Malena has a name, a surname, a fresh complexion and the history of disillusion and disengagement that the Spanish have labelled the "Generación ni-ni: ni estudia ni trabaja". The generation that neither studies nor works. Teens and young adults in Spain, Italy, Britain and America. Lots of them, and the number is growing, although they are not yet in the majority. In Italy, the phenomenon has not been named, or at least not yet, but sociologists and psychologists know it well. And unpublished data in the Youth Report 2008, from the department of social, economic, actuarial and demographic studies at La Sapienza university in Rome, appear to confirm it. Further corroboration comes from cross-referencing the figures with data from the ISTAT national statistics institute's study Work Force 2008. In the 15-19 age group, there are 270,000 young people (9%) who do not study and do not work. Most are unable to find a job but 50,000 say they are unemployed by choice and 11,000 say they want nothing to do with work or study ("I'm not interested", "I don't need to").(...)

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