Why are Italian salaries so low? It’s not just the economy

There’s a certain shrug Italians do. A half-defeated, half-practical motion that says, “What do you want me to do about it?” Ask anyone in Italy why the average salary seems nailed to the floor, and you’ll probably get a variation of that shrug, maybe paired with a sigh, maybe a joke, maybe a deeply uncomfortable silence.

But behind that gesture lies a tangle of history, psychology, and something much harder to name: the weight of cultural expectation. Low wages in Italy aren’t just about weak GDP or underperforming sectors. They’re about people. Families. Upbringings. How a nation teaches its children to behave in front of authority, and what it tells them they’re allowed to ask for.

More than numbers

This isn’t about economics. Or at least, not just. Let’s have a look.

How guarantees can stall growth

Let’s start with something deceptively logical: protection.

Italy has a deeply structured system of collective bargaining. National Collective Bargaining Agreements, or in Italian Contratti Collettivi Nazionali di Lavoro (CCNL), guarantee a set of rights and conditions across sectors. Pay per level with increments, paid time off, sick leave, job security, protections against firing. On paper, it’s a dream.

But when the baseline is already defined in such detail, many employers see no reason to offer more. Why would they? The negotiation has already been done for them. They’re not legally obligated to go beyond it, and in many cases, they don’t. If an Italian business owner complains they can’t find new employees (something remarkably common these days in bars and restaurants, for example) someone might suggest raising the pay. The usual response? “We’re already offering what’s in the CCNL”, as if the minimums set by the national contract somehow cancel out basic market dynamics—like supply, demand, or the actual value of someone’s time.

This reflects a deeper mindset: that complying with the contract is enough, and if the market says otherwise, the market must be wrong. But labour isn’t abstract: it’s people, and people don’t show up for pay that doesn’t meet real-world needs. In other words, if nobody’s applying at €1,100/month, that’s a signal. But rather than adjusting pay, some employers double down on the idea that the problem is with “people (usually younger generations) who don’t want to work”.

Read more: The Italians and the “Smart Working” trap

This is where the ideal bumps into reality. The system that protects everyone can sometimes limit everyone. It’s not sabotage, it’s just inertia.

And so you get this paradox: decent protections, but painfully low pay.

Humility, hierarchy, and the lingering ghost of Catholic guilt

Italy has a complicated relationship with money. It’s not flashy, not openly ambitious in the way the US or even parts of Northern Europe are. It’s Catholic.

We’re talking deeply encoded cultural habits: humility, sacrifice, obedience, and—crucially—the moral suspicion of wealth.

“Testa bassa e pedalare” (head down and keep pedalling) isn’t just a saying. It’s a philosophy. A social contract. An unspoken expectation that you don’t ask for too much, don’t talk back to your boss, don’t get too big for your boots. Your place in the hierarchy is earned slowly, through loyalty and time, not by speaking up or moving fast.

Job-hopping is for foreigners (or crazy people)

In places like the US or the UK, changing jobs every few years is just how it works. It’s expected. It’s how you grow your salary, expand your skills, signal your value.

In much of Italy it’s still awkward, unexpected, vaguely rude.

There’s a deep-rooted fear of movement, of the instability it might bring, but also of the judgment. Switching jobs too often can signal disloyalty, restlessness, even arrogance. And so many stay put. They wait for raises that may never come, promotions that take decades, and gratitude that’s withheld.

Ambition doesn’t get punished outright. But it does get side-eyed.

When the adults don’t know what’s out there

Picture this: you’re 17, trying to pick what to study at uni. You ask your parents. You ask your teachers. You ask that one uncle who’s been working in the same office since 1989.

Their advice? Often well-meaning. But just as often… obsolete.

Read more: The Italian school is looking backwards

Because the people giving guidance grew up in a different world. They built careers in systems that no longer exist. They don’t know what UX design is, or that AI governance is a thing. They talk about law school like it’s still a ticket to status, about “working in a bank” like it’s the dream, and push kids toward degrees that worked 30 years ago—but lead, today, to over-saturated markets and underpaid jobs.

And when you grow up surrounded by people who never left their professional lane, who never switched paths, never questioned the system, never tried something else, believing you can do it feels almost presumptuous.

The Italian middle class is a punching bag

Here’s something strange: in Italy, if you earn more than €2,000 a month, people kind of assume you’re rich. Like, actual stop-complaining-you’re-lucky rich.

Politically, the middle class is leaned on hard. Taxed, squeezed, and often resented. Socially, it’s not much better. There’s a subtle disdain for those who “have money”, not because they’re evil, but because they stand out. They’re different. And culturally, Italy still doesn’t know what to do with that difference.

As a result, even climbing the ladder comes with emotional penalties. You lose the right to complain. You get cut out of certain conversations. Success feels lonely.

So where do we go from here?

This isn’t a call to burn it all down. And it’s definitely not an ode to hustle culture. But something has to give.

There’s a generation growing up now that doesn’t want to shrug anymore. That’s starting to ask questions out loud. Why should ambition feel like betrayal? Why should asking for more be seen as rude, or greedy, or out of place?

Salaries won’t magically rise because Italians change their attitude. But cultures shift slowly, in the words we use, the jokes we stop telling, the excuses we stop accepting, the decisions we stop justifying with “that’s how it’s always been.”

Maybe the first step isn’t a policy or a protest. Maybe it’s a conversation. Maybe it’s just saying out loud what so many have been feeling quietly for years.

Maybe the question isn’t “Why are salaries so low?”

Maybe it’s “Why do we still think we don’t deserve more?”