Looking at young people in Italy today, I feel that their attitudes toward work and employment have changed recently. Of course, Italians have never placed quite as much unquestioned value as the Japanese people do on getting a stable job at a large company. Even so, recently there seems to be an even stronger desire to prioritize a way of life that feels personally meaningful.
Because of my work, I sometimes visit the state-run television station. Since I use the taxi vouchers I receive for the trips there and back, I often end up talking with the drivers.
One day, I was picked up by a young driver who clearly seemed well brought up, polite, and intelligent. During our conversation, I asked him, “What did you study at university?” He answered, "Law," and added that both of his parents were doctors.
When I asked whether his successful parents strongly opposed him becoming a taxi driver, he smiled wryly and said, “Yes. It was difficult.”
He told me that many of his friends who had also graduated from law school were struggling to find jobs. Even those who did manage to enter professional fields often ended up doing little more than photocopying and miscellaneous tasks, unable to make use of what they had studied. Many were dissatisfied. Seeing that, he figured that he would rather make a job out of driving, which he actually enjoyed.
Of course, he said that convincing his parents was not easy. In the end, however, they came to understand that it was a life he had chosen for himself, one he could stand behind.
When I heard this story, I thought that perhaps the times really were changing.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that people were convinced that if you went to a good university, you had to take a job that matched your background. But young people today seem to care less about titles and more about what kind of everyday life they want to lead.
The son of an acquaintance of mine graduated from one of the top economics faculties in Italy. Ordinarily, you’d expect him to go straight into a major corporation or the financial sector. But one day, quite suddenly, he announced that he wanted to become a painter. Apparently, he had not even been painting before that. And yet he suddenly began to paint, and now his works are being shown in galleries.
Another acquaintance of mine who works at a culinary school often has a chance to meet students who come to tour the school during information sessions. She laughed as she told me, "Young people these days are hard to figure out."
According to her, some of the students who attend these sessions seem to have promising futures in regular academic or professional fields. Then one day, they suddenly decide that they want to become pastry chefs and show up at a culinary school information session.
I feel that this kind of sudden transformation says something very Italian about the present moment.
Academic background and job titles alone do not necessarily bring satisfaction in life. In Italy, I can definitely sense that more and more young people are choosing to value how they want to spend their days.