AGI – Fewer and fewer births in Italy. And one in five workers leaves the workforce after having a child. In 2023 we reached a new historic low in a country now firmly below 400 thousand units, with a drop of 3.6% compared to the previous year. Women choose not to have children or have fewer than they would like: in the female population of fertile age, conventionally defined as between 15 and 49 years, the average number of children per woman, in fact, is 1.20, showing a decrease compared to 2022 (1.24). Very far from the 2010 figure, when the average number of children per woman had reached the relative maximum recorded in the last twenty years, equal to 1.44. According to Save The Children who presented the report on Maternity in Italy, the contraction in the birth rate that has accompanied Italy for decades now also involves the foreign component of the population (in 2023 3 thousand fewer births compared to the previous year).
Italy is also the European country with the highest average age of women at the time of the birth of their first child (31.6 years), with a significant percentage of first births to mothers over 40 (8.9%, lower rate only to that of Spain). The average age of mothers at childbirth remains almost unchanged compared to the previous year (32.5 years in 2023 and 32.4 in 2022). The Save the Children report entitled “The Equilibrists, motherhood in Italy” released today a few days before Mother’s Day, takes stock of the infinite challenges that women in Italy have to face when they choose to become mothers. Like every year, the study also includes the Mothers’ Index, developed by Istat for Save the Children, a ranking of the Italian regions where it is easier for mothers to live. This year too, the Index indicates the Autonomous Province of Bolzano as leading the mother-friendly territories, followed by Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, while Basilicata brings up the rear, preceded at the bottom of the ranking by Campania and Sicily.
If the postponement of motherhood and low fertility are the result of numerous contributing causes, the data reveal that the more women’s participation in the labor market increases, the more the fertility rate increases. An element to take into due consideration in a job market that still suffers from a very strong gender gap. From the data of the Save the Children Report, it emerges that in Italy the female employment rate (aged 15-64 years) was 52.5% in 2023, a lower value than the European Union average (65.8% ) by as many as 13 percentage points. The difference between the employment rate of men and women in our country, in the same year, was 17.9 percentage points, much more marked than the differences observed at EU27 level (9.4 percentage points) and secondly, very slightly , only to Greece, where the difference is 18 percentage points.
For women, the issue of balancing work and family remains critical for those who carry out unpaid care work in their family. An indicator of the difficulties that mothers face in reconciling family and work commitments is represented by the number of employed women between the ages of 25 and 54: compared to a female employment rate of 63.8%, women without children who work reach 68.7%, while only just over half of those with two or more minor children are employed (57.8%). On the contrary, for men of the same age, the total employment rate is 83.7%, with a variation ranging from 77.3% for those without children, up to 91.3% for those with a minor child and 91.6% for those with two or more.
There are many territorial disparities: in the South of Italy for women, employment stops at 48.9% for those without children (79.8% in the North and 74.4% in the centre) and drops to 42% in the presence of minor children, reaching 40% for women with two or more minor children (73.2% in the north and 68.3% in the centre). The same disparities are also noted for men, although with different values: in the South, men without children who are employed reach 61.5% (86.7% in the North and 81.3% in the Centre), while those with minor children reach 82.8% (96.7% in the North and 94.5% in the Centre).
It is clear how the birth of a child affects gender inequality in the world of work. It is mainly mothers who resign, with their first child and within the first year of life. In fact, during 2022, a total of 61,391 voluntary resignation validations were carried out for parents of children aged 0-3 throughout the national territory, an increase of 17.1% compared to the previous year. 72.8% of the total (equal to 44,699) concerns women, while 27.2% concerns men (equal to 16,692), with a greater growth of female ones compared to the previous year. This year too, a significant difference emerges in the motivations between men and women for validation. For women, in fact, the main difficulty is the difficulty in reconciling work and child care: 41.7% attributed this difficulty to the lack of assistance services, while 21.9% indicated problems related to the organization of work.
Overall, caregiving challenges accounted for 63.6% of all validation reasons given by working mothers. For men, however, the predominant motivation is of a professional nature: 78.9% declared that the end of the employment relationship was due to a change of company and only 7.1% reported child care needs . Among the most “mum-friendly” regions, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (115.255) and Emilia-Romagna (110.530) stand out at the top of the general index, respectively in the first and second positions on the list. Immediately behind is Tuscany, which gains one position compared to the last edition (109.239) and stands in third place.
Although compared to the previous year, the Italian situation has improved both from an absolute point of view and from a territorial gap point of view, the regions of Southern Italy continue to all position themselves below the Italian reference value, with some particularly far from the 100 mark. Calabria (92,671), Puglia (92,085), Sicily (91,050), Campania (89,474) and Basilicata (87,441), bringing up the rear, occupy the last places in the General Index with almost no upheavals compared to the last edition , with an exchange of positions between Puglia (18) which loses a position and Calabria (17) which gains it. Relegated to the bottom of the Index, these regions more than others suffer from lack of investment in the area which translates into a structural shortage of services and jobs. Among the Regions that improved the most compared to the previous year, Lazio went from 13th to 8th place, gaining 5 positions and Lombardy which rose from 8th to 4th.
The Marche (102,488), Piedmont (100,979), Abruzzo (100,504) and Liguria (100,321) occupy the top places in the Work area. Regions where, for mothers, the world of work is more accessible and where the number of resignations or non-voluntary reductions in working hours after the birth of one or more children are lower. On the other hand, Puglia (84,667), the Autonomous Province of Trento (84,356), Sicily (81,567) and Campania (81,535) are the least virtuous, occupying respectively from the eighteenth to the last position. The data also shows that in Italy, while full-time work is more common among men than women, the opposite is true for part-time work. In general in our country only 6.6% of men who work do so part-time, compared to 31.3% of women workers, who in half of the cases (15.4%) suffer an involuntary part-time job.
Among those who have children, the percentage of women employed part-time increases significantly (36.7%) compared to those without children (23.5%). Among men, however, the figure goes from 8.7% for those without children to 4.6% for fathers. Leaving Italy, it emerges that from 2000 to today, France is the only European country that has remained consistently close to the threshold of two children per woman, although since 2015 the country has seen its fertility rate gradually decline, with one exception between 2020 and 2021 when the average number of children per woman began to grow again, and in 2022 it stands at 1.79 children per woman. Its approach focuses on a complex system of financial support for families and on guaranteeing access to quality childcare services tailored to different family needs. Finland, despite having recorded a decline in demographic trends during 2022, experienced a clear recovery in the birth rate between 2019 and 2021.
The country adopted one of the most innovative leave reforms in Europe in 2022, which provides for the symmetrical allocation of leave quotas for each parent, with the possibility of transferring part of the quota to the other parent, an overall longer parental leave and greater flexibility in use. Access to early childhood services is also guaranteed to a very high percentage of children, especially in the age group between 2 and 3 years (69.6%). In Germany, the fertility rate increased between 2020 and 2021, but dropped dramatically again in 2022, from 1.58 to 1.46 children per woman. Here, in addition to financial support for children and the possibility of taking part-time parental leave while working the rest of the time, thus compensating for the loss of income at 67%, children from 1 year of age are entitled to a place in a nursery or similar service.
Finally, the Czech Republic has progressively increased the fertility rate since 2011, reaching 1.83 children per woman in 2021; in 2022, like and more than in other European countries, here too the rate has started to fall again. The country, with a participation rate in 0-2 year old childcare services of 6% in 2020, has favored a traditional care model, favoring long periods of absence from work for mothers. Meanwhile, Italy recorded fertility rates constantly below 1.5 with a decline that began in 2007 and never stopped (except for 1 decimal point between 2020 and 2021).
