Also this year guest of honor of General birth ratesnow in its fourth edition, will be Pope francescoon the second day of the event promoted on 9 and 10 May in Rome, at the Auditorium della Conciliazione, by Birth Foundation. Gigi De Palopresident of the Birth Foundation, presents us with the 2024 edition.
What aspect will you focus on this year?
The theme this year is young people, because we want to make it clear that the objective of the States General and of talking about birth rates is not to try to convince young people to have children. We want to expose the false thought that it is young people who do not want to have children.
The objective of the States General is to enable young people to realize their work and family dreams,
create a situation in which young people do not feel excluded from the possibility of dreaming while remaining in their country. This is why the title of the fourth edition of the General States is “Being younger, more future”, because it is crucial to ensure that the policies of the fathers are in harmony with those for the children. The birth rate is part of a broader discussion linked to intergenerational dialogue and solidarity. If there are no young people, everything will collapse and we will be a country without hope. So the central theme is this: not a moralistic approach, having children, but a concrete approach to create the conditions for our children to have answers so that they can start a family if they want and not go abroad to realize their dreams work and family.
What result do you hope to achieve, then, with the fourth edition of the States General?
Our goal is that the States General are no longer necessary. Given that it is good to talk about birth rates and it is already a great result to “force” the country to address this issue for two days, now we must move from words to deeds.
We need structural reform, we need impactful policies.
This year we had fewer births, 14 thousand fewer, compared to last year. The data speaks clearly: if the Government, Regions and Municipalities are truly implementing impactful policies regarding the birth rate, next year there will be results. With great autonomy and independence, we can act as a spur to politics. The mothers and fathers of our network make their voices and concerns heard. This is the year of no return. The report “There is a younger person, a better future. From numbers to reality”, the first publication created by the Birth Foundation in collaboration with Istat, presented at the end of April, shows us, in fact, that in 2050 we will have one young person and three elderly people. We will increasingly have an only child who will have to take care not only of their parents but also of some other elderly people. We need to reverse course.
Why don’t we move from words to concreteness?
For me it is already a great result to move the idea from the birth rate as a question of Istat alone to the birth rate as an economic and cultural question of the whole country, every day there is an article in a newspaper. Then, we must also say that in order to implement impactful birthrate policies, it is necessary to remove resources for current public spending to put them on a spending chapter whose fruits will not be seen in the short term and therefore there is the idea of being able to have a return minor electoral. There is an approach on the part of all politicians – right and left – linked more to their re-election than to making history, to changing the system and the country. A second aspect is that we take family for granted in Italy.
Regarding the birth rate, we still don’t see the cracks in the wall, perhaps in the South they can be seen because the birth rate decline is creating depopulation, there are abandoned villages and soon we don’t know there will be anyone left. In the North and the Centre, in the big cities it is less noticeable, because it is true that there are fewer children, but there are young people who come from the South and from small cities. But if we don’t see the cracks in the wall we continue to think that the problem will be solved, while at a certain point everything will come down, like a landslide when the trees are removed. Take away the young people and the country system will collapse.
I have always liked this metaphor: Noah built the ark when the sun was shining. Today is the time to make serious policies. Another reason, entirely Italian, is entirely ideological. In France since 1944 everyone together introduced the Family Quotient: governments have passed, but it has remained. We in Italy have this panorama, in which the parties have an ideological vision of the birth rate, so the issue is exploited or trivialized. There is a fan approach that we have been trying to overcome since the first year of the States General. Why don’t we find the Italian way, which can also give serious and concrete answers to the issue linked to the birth rate? These are my concerns, I’ll add another.
Please…
Let’s move on to fashion. It is objective that we need to create a different tax system than the current one.
Taxation is the litmus test on where you are going to put the resources of a budget. It’s not giving gifts to some rather than others. Taxation is the figure of where the country is going. If I make those who have children pay less taxes, I am giving a political and cultural signal. My feeling is that instead we move forward with trends and the solutions also reflect this. We are getting used to accepting that the State makes policies that a Region or a Municipality could make: a serious, structural reform is expected from the State, while every year a small piece is made, parental leave, tax relief for workers with children, nurseries , but this doesn’t solve the problem. Politics does not have the courage to say: let’s not divide up the resources and carry out a reform that makes history. How France did it and how we could do it with the single allowance, which should have been financed more every year. Instead we left and every year we take some money away from him. And let’s move on to trends: as if one had children because there are nursery schools. But before giving nursery schools and parental leave, lay the foundations: make those who have children pay fewer taxes because the time, energy and economic resources they are investing in their children are an added value for the community, because the their children will pay the pension not only to their parents, but also to those who were unable or did not want to have children. And rightly so in a country that places solidarity at its centre. People don’t understand that the tax reform is not only aimed at those who already have children but also gives a mentality to young people because it makes them understand where the State invests.
The tax reform represents the foundations, improving the single allowance which is another important piece by including it in the reform, then we begin to put in the floors and therefore services such as nursery schools, fixtures and therefore parental leave, we begin to collaborate with local administrations, in a subsidiary logic.
Instead we waste public resources without management. We need a credible politician who can also speak with local administrations, even those that are not directly linked to their political colour.
