The data

Quality of life: landslides, floods and services, the tweaks to 90 indicators to tell the present story

27 parameters debuted, including hydrogeological risk, Cig, GDP trend and income inequality. House prices compared to salary

by Michela Finizio

16 December 2024

4' min read

Key points

New products 2024
The architecture of the survey
Synthetic indexes

4' min read

From the drop in production to the hours of redundancy payments required by companies, mostly those in the textile and mechanics industries. From income inequalities to the monthly salaries needed to buy a house, both of which are on the rise in large cities. From areas at risk of landslides or flooding to the average travel time to reach essential services (stations, hospitals and schools).

These are just a few of the 90 indicators of the Quality of Life 2024, selected by the editorial staff and referring to the 107 Italian provinces, which seek to take a snapshot of the most recent current events and the most complex phenomena that are changing our country. Each year, the choice of indicators that make up the ranking is guided by the desire to tell the story of the present. This is why no less than 27 parameters used this year are different from those used in 2023, with the aim of finding statistics that are more up-to-date and better able to tell the story of the year that has just gone by.

News 2024

Among these, there are in particular nine new features introduced in the category "Environment and services", the most renewed compared to the previous edition, which makes the thematic ranking difficult to compare on an annual basis. It debuts the efficiency of drinking water distribution networks; the irregularities of the electricity service; the seat-kilometres offered by local public transport; the average annual concentration of PM10; the density of all photovoltaic plants; the areas at risk of landslides and floods; the municipalities with services for families entirely online; and ISTAT's urban fragility index (constructed through the combination of twelve elementary indicators describing the main territorial, environmental and socio-economic dimensions of fragility on a municipal basis).

Particularly decisive are also the innovations in the 'Wealth and Consumption' category, where parameters already used in past years have been re-introduced, such as the percentage of pensioners with pension income below EUR 500 and the average annual salary of private sector employees.

What makes the difference, however, and has a marked impact on the stage ranking, are the new indicators relating to the trend of per capita GDP (annual % change in the 2024 estimate over 2023, source: Prometeia) and the parameter of inequality of declared net income (last quintile/first quintile ratio). The latter is the result of an unpublished elaboration by the Ufficio studi del Sole 24 Ore starting from the tax statistics of the Ministry of Finance on declared incomes for 2022.

Also relevant is the restyling of the house price figure, for the first time related to the average monthly salary of an employee: the parameter is no longer considered synonymous with wealth but, in this way, reflects the different affordability of buying a house.

In the other categories, finally, the following indicators also make their debut (or at least return, because they have already been used in the past): social enterprises per 10,000 inhabitants, the mortality quotient and the ISTAT index on avoidable mortality, early school-leaving, hospital emigration, the turnover index of civil cases in the courts, protected areas and municipal expenditure on culture.

The architecture of the survey

Six thematic rankings emerge from the division of the 90 indicators - all equally weighted (methodological note on page 18) - into six categories:

1) Wealth and consumption: economic availability and spending power;

2) Business and work: entrepreneurial and employment opportunities;

3) Demography, society and health: living and health conditions, education levels;

4)Environment and services: climate and environmental protection, quality and efficiency of services;

5) Justice and security: complaints, offences, incidents and litigation;

6) Culture and Leisure: cultural offer, leisure time venues and services.

The synthetic indices

Contributing to the final result, finally, are a dozen or so 'synthetic indices' elaborated by Il Sole 24 Ore, all published during the course of the year, which allow us to go even deeper into certain areas. These are indices that aggregate several parameters, elaborated by third-party institutes or directly by Sole 24 Ore.

These include the 'Sportsmanship Index' of Pts, which for almost 20 years has been measuring the diffusion and quality of sport in the territory; the 'Urban Ecosystem' of Legambiente on environmental data of cities; the 'ICity Rank 2021', elaborated by Fpa, the result of the synthesis of 36 indicators on the digital transition of municipalities.

The publication of the 'vertical' indices of Quality of Life moves in this direction, such as the 'Climate Index', renewed in July of this year on the basis of punctual data provided by 3Bmeteo over the decade 2013-2023, which summarises ten climatic parameters (including sunshine, heat waves, humidity, extreme events and rainfall). Or the indices of Quality of Life for children, young people and the elderly, summarised in this edition in a single parameter: each is made up of ten sub-indicators and rewards the provinces with the best services and the best living environment by age group. Finally, the Women's Quality of Life (defined by 12 indicators), now in its fourth edition.

Michela Finiziovice caposervizio
Luogo: Milano
Lingue parlate: Italiano e inglese
Argomenti: social network, innovazione, statistiche, data journalism, norme e mercato immobiliare
Scheda autore
Trust project