Global population growth will come to a halt well before the end of this century, as fertility rates have declined more sharply than expected almost everywhere. In developed countries, depopulation is already underway—cumulative and difficult to reverse—because not only is the fertility rate dropping, but so is the number of women of childbearing age. Decades of declining birth rates have led to ever-smaller cohorts entering the labor market. This has significant consequences for economic growth, innovation rates, and labor supply. We have transitioned from a world with too few jobs to one with too few workers. OECD countries as a whole are currently facing labor shortages at all levels. Yet, young people in advanced economies often have career aspirations that differ markedly from the roles that are in highest demand. Among the most sought-after jobs are home care for the elderly, cleaning services, waiters, and bartenders—occupations that typically offer low wages, heavy workloads, limited career prospects, and where a large proportion of workers report struggling to make ends meet. These are objective characteristics of such jobs and are unlikely to change, meaning that even higher wages often fail to attract those currently opting out of the labor market. Moreover, the demand for labor by households and businesses is highly sensitive to labor costs: it would significantly drop if wages were raised substantially, thereby reducing services such as elder care and other community-based offerings.

Many young people are neither working nor engaged in education or training. The phenomenon of NEETs (Not in Employment, Education or Training) is the flip side of a growing wave of youth malaise. “I was twenty: I will not let anyone say those are the best years of life.” The opening line of Aden Arabia by Paul Nizan could not be more timely. Over the past fifteen years, the age profile of stress and depression-related distress has changed dramatically. Previously, more than 600 surveys conducted in nearly 150 countries consistently reported a U-shaped curve of dissatisfaction across age: people’s dissatisfaction with life tended to rise until midlife, peaking around age 50, then declining in old age. Since 2010, things have shifted: today, distress is most acute among adolescents and decreases with age. The rise in teenage malaise is corroborated by data on diagnoses of depression among college students in the United States and elsewhere. This distress takes many forms: anorexia, bulimia, addiction, self-harm, violence, suicide, school dropout, and social withdrawal. It affects a vast number of individuals: according to UNICEF, approximately 11 million children and adolescents in the European Union suffer from psychological distress.

Many explanations have been proposed, and as is often the case, multiple factors likely contribute. The pandemic left a lingering legacy of hardship, having deprived adolescents for extended periods of crucial social interaction during a formative stage highly sensitive to environmental conditions. The most frequently cited cause for rising youth distress, however, is early exposure to social media and parental restrictions on real-world interactions—a form of overprotectiveness. Solutions should focus on providing alternatives to obsessive smartphone use rather than banning devices altogether. Instead of spending funds from the NRRP (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) to distribute digital devices to elementary school students, those resources would be better spent building football fields, basketball courts, and swimming pools—encouraging sports and real-life socialization. Music, too, can be a powerful antidote to depression and marginalization.

Beyond adolescence, the most effective remedy for youth malaise lies in achieving one’s professional aspirations. Yet the school-to-work transition is often fraught, particularly in Italy, where half a million highly educated young people have emigrated over the past decade. Rather than focusing on the reasons behind this exodus, public attention is overwhelmingly directed toward immigration. Often driven by non-economic motives, there is widespread fear of newcomers, with support for parties and leaders whose communications revolve around closing borders and mass deportation. Yet, policies aimed at curbing migration mainly end up hindering integration and perpetuating the narrative of immigration as a constant emergency.

And yet, never before have the wealthiest countries needed immigrant labor as urgently as they do today. In the short term, it is often the only resource available to meet the pressing needs of families and businesses seeking caregivers and workers in a wide range of occupations. Immigration also helps balance public finances and makes pension systems more sustainable, simply because immigrants tend to be younger than native populations—expanding the base of contributors relative to retirees. Second- and third-generation immigrants, especially when supported by inclusive citizenship laws and investments in education, can make a substantial contribution to economic growth. Some argue that the way to counter demographic decline is to close borders and encourage women to have more children. But how can families be supported in this direction? And, more importantly, why should immigration and increased fertility be seen as opposing goals? Well-managed immigration reduces the cost of raising children and frees up time—particularly for women—to invest in their professional development, strengthening their bargaining power both at work and at home.

From May 30 to June 2 in Turin, we will delve into these themes, with contributions not only from economists, sociologists, and psychologists, but also from those with firsthand knowledge of immigration, the evolving structure of family life, labor market demands, and youth distress.

Tito Boeri