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Thinking Allowed: Italian Family 2: Naples

29/08/2012

Italian Family 2: Naples

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Italian Family 2: Naples

Laurie Taylor visits Naples to investigate the role of Italian family values.

Why is the Italian family in danger of extinction? Laurie Taylor explores Italian business, legitimate and otherwise, and travels to Naples to investigate the role of family values.

Italy, home to the Pope and the Holy See, perhaps the most Catholic of all countries, is undergoing a peculiarly un-Catholic crisis; it now has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. There are so few children being born that if the current trend persists, traditional Italians are at risk of dying out in just a handful of generations. How can the nation famed for Romanticism, for enormous affectionate families, for Mamma Mia and for an enviable certainty that all you need is good food, good wine and your family around you, be the same nation that no longer gives birth? Laurie travels to the South of Italy and visits the sole-remaining glove maker in Naples, in an attempt to discover whether the Italian family business is heading for extinction. He also explores whether organised crime is a distortion of Italian family values - or their logical extension.
Producer: Charlie Taylor.

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