Is Italy rich or poor

Answer 1

This is a relative question, that is, it can only be answered relative to some other country (e.g. Brazil). Is Italy rich? It depends how you measure wealth. If you use material wealth (i.e. income per capita, GDP, etc.) then Italy is wealthier than many nations (e.g. Russia, Brazil). In fact, according to GDP, it is the 7th largest economy in the World and has roughly the same income per capita as France or Spain. You could also answer this question based on other variables, such as life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality in which case Italy also ranks among the highest in World. Indeed, the UN's own World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the Italian Health care system as being 2nd Worldwide while other countries such as Canada and the US ranked respectively 30th and 37th.

Regarding the standard of living, Northern Italy (down south to appr. Rome) is one of Europe's wealthiest regions, comparable to e.g. Bavaria or Western Austria. Southern Italy's standard of living is comparable to that of the post-communist Central European countries, e.g. Hungary or Slovakia. Overall, the Italian standard of living is consistently ranked in the highest categories. For example, it has an HDI (Human development Index) of 0.945 which ranks next to countries such as Belgium or the US. The gap between rich and poor is moderate and defintely ranks better than the US. The gini coefficient (a standard measure of the gap between rich and poor where the lower the number the better) for Italy is at 36 while the US has a value at about 46.

All in all, Italy is easily qualifiable as a rich, developed Western country with an extremely rich cultural heritage.

Answer 2

the other answer was stupid... Italy has always been about as rich as France and England.

In southern Italy there is a lot more poverty and that is how the mafia formed

( the poor came emmigrated from Italy and to the usa to became criminals )

northern Italy Milan ect is the richest part of Italy

Answer 3

Yes. There is more poverty in the south than the north because the south's economy is based on agriculture.