Boosting Italy’s birthrate has become a patriotic cause for the far right. But it’s an idea that’s doomed

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Boosting Italy’s birthrate has become a patriotic cause for the far right. But it’s an idea that’s doomed​

Tobias Jones

With the country’s population tumbling, what Italy really needs is greater immigration, yet how could Giorgia Meloni sanction that?

Wed 3 Jan 2024 02.00 EST

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Elderly men at a marketplace in Orgosolo, Sardinia, Italy.

‘Elderly care isn’t necessarily a burden, but a business opportunity.’ Elderly men at a marketplace in Orgosolo, Sardinia, Italy. Photograph: imageBROKER/Alamy

Fifty years ago in Italy, there was one person over 65 for every child aged six or under. Just before Christmas, Italy’s national statistics office, Istat, revealed that the ratio is now 5.6 to 1. The population pyramid has been inverted, with 24% of the Italian population now over 65.

With the death rate rising every year, the Italian population decreases by around 180,000 people per annum. The population has just dipped below 59 million and if current trends continue it’s likely that by 2070 it will fall to 48 million.

One can clearly glimpse this ageing society with the naked eye. There are so many elderly men milling around Italian cities that the umarell phenomenon has become a meme: it’s an affectionate term for pensioners who, with hands behind backs, gather round building sites to watch the progress.

Meanwhile, the base of the population pyramid is ever slimmer. In 2022, there were only 392,500 births in the whole country and the fertility rate now stands at 1.25. In Sardinia the situation is even more marked, with a fertility rate of 0.95.

So schools are constantly closing around the country: 2,600 infant and junior schools have shut in the last nine years and it’s estimated that, within a decade, there will be a million and a half fewer pupils, meaning more closures. Many remote, rural villages are now ghost towns, filling up only during the long summer holidays.

In almost every statistic affecting fertility, Italy is now an outlier. The country holds the European record for the highest age of first-time mothers (31.4). That’s partly because an astonishing 70.5% of 18- to 34-year-old Italians are still living with their parents, an effective contraceptive if ever there was one.

The lack of births is also basic economics: according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Italy is the only country where real wages actually declined between 1990 and 2020: the average gross salary of almost €27,000 (£23,500) is 12% below the European average and 23% below that of Germany. “There’s no way I could afford to have a child,” Chiara, a 32-year-old friend, told me.

Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, speaks at the Atreju political festival in Rome, Italy, 17 December 2023.

‘The issue of the country’s demographic crisis is shooting up the political agenda because Giorgia Meloni’s nationalistic government sees in the birthrate – as did Benito Mussolini – a symbol of patriotic vigour.’ Meloni in Rome, 17 December 2023. Photograph: Alessandro Serran/Shutterstock

Such rock-bottom salaries mean that most aspiring parents both have to work, but in reality only 51.3% of working-age women in Italy are actually in employment (compared with more than 70% in Germany and the UK, and 68% in France).

Professor Arnstein Aassve, a Norwegian-born demographer at Milan’s Bocconi University, tells me: “There’s something that’s just not working in Italy: it’s as if young people can’t launch somehow.” He points to the fact that Italy has the second-highest proportion of 15- to 29-year-old “Neets” (those “not in education, employment or training”) in the European Union: 19%, compared to an EU-wide average of 11.7%. Meanwhile many of the most able, ambitious Italians have fled abroad for better opportunities: of the 5.8 million Italians who live overseas, 36.3% are under 34.

It has often been suggested that there are fewer births in Italy because, paradoxically, the family is so predominant. Given Italy’s wafer-thin welfare state provision, families are over-burdened by picking up the slack: constantly looking after parents or grandchildren, providing transport, daycare and housing solutions. It’s as if the duties to one family prevents the creation of another.

The issue of the country’s demographic crisis is shooting up the political agenda because Giorgia Meloni’s nationalistic government sees in the birthrate – as did Benito Mussolini – a symbol of patriotic vigour. In the past, she has often invoked a conspiracy theory (known as the “great replacement”) suggesting elites are deliberately replacing native, white Europeans, with immigrants. So for her, the birthrate is about racial survival. She has appointed an anti-abortion minister for family and attended rallies to raise the number of newborns to 500,000 per annum.

Mussolini introduced a punitive tax on bachelors, and Meloni has halved the VAT on nappies and baby milk. But nudging the masses to have families is notoriously difficult. And even if people do decide to have more children, those offspring only enter the workforce, and become taxpayers, two decades later.

There is a much quicker solution, often raised by Italian demographers, but it is politically problematic for a far-right government: immigration. Linda Laura Sabbadini, a director at Istat I spoke to, was adamant that it’s now the only answer. “We need migrants,” she said. “Only with more migrants of working age will the population grow immediately and guarantee the pension payments of a rapidly ageing population.”

Some, though, suggest Italy shouldn’t even be looking for a solution. FutuRes is an EU-funded research project challenging the familiar narrative that elderly people are a problem and that youth is the answer. Rather than attempting to reverse an inevitable societal trend, its team of demographers, economists and policy experts analyse the numbers to show that, say, the issue isn’t age but health, or that elderly care isn’t necessarily a burden, but a business opportunity.

After a century of failed birthrate policies, perhaps that’s the wisest course: to accept that the population pyramid is now inverted and draft policies that take account of that reality, rather than hope to reverse it.



  • Tobias Jones lives in Parma. His most recent book is The Po: An Elegy for Italy’s Longest River
 

bnew

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1/37
@FT
Opinion: As birth rates plummet, the country is fawning over — and spending on — pets. How dogs replaced children in Italy



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2/37
@xxmahibogixx
😛



3/37
@quant_guy
Because people can barely afford to live let alone reproduce, they fill the void of childlessness with these poor animals



4/37
@Rotimongn
End of western civilisation



5/37
@mbaldin
Once, Sunday reunions were a cherished Italian tradition. Sadly, now they are just a memory.



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6/37
@_manuvers
Is this an opinion or a fact?



7/37
@NewStuffGuru
Modern urbanization needs to be reworked.



8/37
@_FREEish
Here’s why? Lol. The world is broke. The only people having kids are the ones getting freebies.



9/37
@CiociaroMarine
Pets, like humans, learn very quickly who butters their bread and act accordingly.



10/37
@mandyarthur
👀



GygSKKrbkAAonry.jpg


11/37
@finsends
I propose a ban on buying pets for anyone below 30 worldwide. That'll boost birth rates.



12/37
@Stromschlag2
Greetings from Italy 🇮🇹



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13/37
@Damilia2012
Earth has enough people for now. Every day every time people have babies. Stop making a fuss about the 'birth rate thing' same old story like the world is going to end. No. When the gen Alpha grow up they will have babies.

same story since 1880 😒



14/37
@amazingyearT1
Lots of couples “practice” with dogs, then have kids and realize omg this is a lot of work … and then get rid of the dog. First sign of stress in the marriage.



15/37
@Koporkey
dog already looking too clean on that 3 piece suit.



16/37
@XMAN__Official
I guess they are much easier to neglect than children? Especially when the cost of living decimates the quality of life of their citizens..



17/37
@leofnblack
Yea.... but have you met most humans?



18/37
@Everylastgoat
Pets are cheaper and love unconditionally. No
Brainer.



19/37
@Dormae113823
My cats don't make me feel like I'm worthless like my kid does



20/37
@shinyazurill
It's time to ban pet ownership for single women



21/37
@PhoenixTTD
Feminists hate children, men, families, and marriage. They don't believe in love. That's why.



22/37
@Hillbully38389
I can see why. I’m head over heels for my pet possums!



23/37
@RutvijNetCartel
“First pizza, now this… Italy really knows how to replace stuff 🍕➡️🐶🤣



24/37
@CalimanArawak
So bad for the priesthood



25/37
@NoCaparison




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26/37
@francescot56062
E fatevi i caz*i vostri



27/37
@TheBull4You
Been happening in the US for 20+ years. In the 90s if you brought a dog into a hotel, you would have been asked to leave. Nowadays, no problem.



28/37
@Trschroeder75
Finally, some good news.



29/37
@CarlosJ70341003
People are sick.
Children can not be replaced with animals.



30/37
@frantechno
Let's recycle decades-old stories from Japan...



31/37
@bradyjdb
And?



32/37
@PtahDaaNH
jews



33/37
@DaxMax23
I wonder if college/CC debt correlates with fertility rate



34/37
@hellolynna21876
Until humanoid robots are available They don't poop, bark, bite srink, tear up your couch



35/37
@SunnyKitten321
It's very simple; people cannot afford children; the only people who can afford children are the wealthy and the poor because they get government assistance. The middle class can no longer afford a family.



36/37
@RFenicle72595
So easy so cheap



37/37
@GatitoDeChallet
Unconditional love




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barese

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Italy needs:
Affordability.
Universal Childcare.
Greater maternity leave.

Economy has been creating just tax cuts for the rich since Berlusconi.
 
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