Noemc. Neither mothers nor couples. And not even in a career, if by “career” we mean a life devoted to work in exchange for a reasonable sum of money. As many 35-40 year olds today might define themselves, Millennials born in the early 1980s who escape the rigid boxes society tends to fit women into?
We could call them Nemc, “not engaged, not mothers, not in career”, along the lines of Neet, the acronym born in sociology to frame those young people under 25 who do not work, do not study and do not keep up to date. With the difference that the NEETs are young people in a suspended but somehow still “recoverable” phase of life, given their age, while the NEMCs find themselves in a ford from which it is very difficult to escape. They work (a lot), on paper in good positions too. Lawyers, architects, journalists, engineers… But they don’t earn enough to plan an adult life, completely independent from the family of origin and projected towards the future.
Nemc, my family is me
The Nemc try, they manage every aspect of their daily life on their own, from queuing at the post office to the theft of their scooter, from health problems to professional deadlines. They have reduced going out and having fun, but not completely otherwise they would have to lock themselves up at home in solitude since they don’t have a partner or a love interest, not by choice but because that’s how it’s gone, at least until now. In short, they are to all intents and purposes “single families”, a status now shared by a large portion of the population Italian: 33.2 percent of families in our country are made up of a single person (10 percentage points more than in the 2001-2002 period, Istat data), a share which in Milan reaches 42.2 percent.
The worry of the Nemc, therefore, is not the absence of a couple, which they have partly made up for through a dense network of emotional and practical support (friends). Single but not alone, they don’t live waiting for love: if it comes, greatAnd. Their main problem is much more pressing: money. 2023 salaries are too low, especially if you live in a big city, to meet even basic expenses without feeling drowned. Rent or mortgage, groceries, bills… All items that weigh heavily on those who don’t share them with anyone, as MoneyFarm reminds us: living alone in Italy means spending 571 euros more per month, which becomes 100 thousand in 15 years.
It is no coincidence that, according to a survey by the publishing house Bookbook, in Milan 62 percent of the under 40 population spends more to live than they earn. A real generational poverty, not in absolute terms, the Nemc do not experience the dramatic situation of those who do not have anything to eat but relative ones: after graduation and a long apprenticeship they are unable to have the economic tranquility they hoped to have earned. An extra medical visit or a sudden condominium payment is enough to blow up the month’s limited budget. To give themselves a week’s holiday they are forced to go into debt. There’s no question of saving anything at all. And if they didn’t have a retired Boomer parent behind them who helps them every now and then, perhaps by extending the rent on their grandmother’s house, they would be forced to give up the life they fought to have.
Single women over 35 are a weak group, with little purchasing power, who should be considered as a social category. (Getty Images)
Where did I go wrong?
Not being financially independent at 35-40 years old, beyond the frustration, generates a constant sense of inadequacythe so-called “guilty poverty”: the idea that if you don’t earn enough it’s your fault, especially in the era of influencers paying thousands of euros per post. The Nemcs live with a calculator in their hands, and this anguish prevents them from doing the only thing that in these cases could provide some relief: planning. Dream. Ambire. Project yourself a little further than the income/expense file. This material and emotional paralysis also affects relationships: It’s not easy today to meet someone to build something with. And so the desire for motherhood of some NEMCs is also frustrated.
In short, there are tens of thousands of women out there in a crucial age group who find themselves screwed up. Imprisoned in an eternal repeating cycle. Their life is not much different from what they lived ten years ago. Their economic condition has not improved, on the contrary. Not even the relational one. Rather, concerns have increased and hopes have decreased. And no one tells it.
Another drama of the NEMC is the absence of representation, because in the common imagination if you are female, single and over 35 you either clearly have “something wrong” or you have become someone. An actress, a writer, a singer, a politician, a scientist. Something special, if you have given up on motherhood or as a couple, you must have done it. But no, these are normal women, if normal means anything. With the “simple” and legitimate ambition of living (well) from one’s work, cultivating one’s interests and desires. Not even TV series can help: raised with the rampant model of Carrie Bradshaw, who in Sex and the City was pining for love but at least was an established and wealthy journalist, or with the “indie” alternative of Fleabag And Girlsin which the protagonists were penniless, but at least young, the NEMC are nowhere to be found.
If the new poor are the workers
In which script does a forty-year-old professional have money problems? It’s counterintuitive. Yet in reality it works exactly like this. “Where did we go wrong?”, the NEMCs end up asking themselves. But the right question is another: what is happening on a collective level? «We are experiencing a paradox: the new poor are the workers” explains the economist Azzurra Rinaldi, director of the School of Gender Economics of the University of Rome. «TAmong rich countries this is unique and concerns only Italy: in our country the pact at the basis of capitalist society, that is, the idea that if you work you have a series of benefits, such as money and purchasing power, has completely broken down. Salaries have fallen 3 percent from 1990 to today (OECD data, ed.) and in the meantime the prices of all goods and services have increased. As a result, inequalities, including gender, have increased.”
This is why we talk about Nemc in the female form: «In the 35-50 age group, the incidence of lower wages is greater for women than for men» continues Rinaldi. «And according to observers from professional associations, the salary difference between men and women is still brutal: an engineer has double the income of a female colleague, with the same skills and seniority. The same thing goes for lawyers and accountants: men are entrusted with the most important tasks, women with minor ones. A legacy that dies hard.”
Politics helps mothers. And the others?
With very serious consequences: «If a part of the female population over 35 is not in a position to have a fairly remunerated career and, if desired, a family, we are faced with a lost generation, which can never be recovered» continues Rinaldi. In ten years, it will be too late for the NEMC.
The theme is exquisitely political: «We need a feminist leadership that did not push only on the equivalence between woman and mother» Rinaldi sinks. «That is dangerous rhetoric, which prevents us from seeing the other situations in which people find themselves. In this historical moment single women over 35 are a weak group, with little purchasing power, who should be helped». Help for singles. Feeling seen, considered as a social category and not as “a mistake”: the (true) forbidden dream of the NEMC.
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