COVID-19 impact on households budget in Italy 2021, by educational level

The COVID-19 pandemic that first hit Italy in late February 2020 had a massive impact on life in the country. The measures adopted by the Italian government to control the contagion pushed many businesses to stop or radically scale down their activities. According to a survey conducted in April 2021, around 56 percent of Italian households ran into budget problems during the pandemic. When taking into account only people who had a middle school diploma as their highest educational achievement, this figure jumped to 74.5 percent. Almost one quarter of the respondents belonging to this category even had to cut some basic expenses. On the other hand, 39 percent of people holding a university degree even managed to save some money during this time.