The cold wind of the birth rate continues to lash Italy and Puglia. There are fewer and fewer births throughout the country and the Apulian territory does not escape this emergency. A very delicate topic, which he also spoke about Pope francesco: «Due to the frenetic pace of life, fears about the future, the lack of job guarantees and adequate social protection, of social models in which the search for profit rather than the care of relationships dictates the agenda, we are witnessing various countries to a worrying decline in birth rates.”
Istat data
According to data processed by Istat, in fact, only 379 thousand children were born in 2023, just over 25 thousand from Puglia. Numbers that are even worse than previous years and which outline an already complicated reality that is destined to worsen in the near future, if a trend reversal that is as difficult as it is still possible does not materialize. According to estimates by experts and family associations, by 2033 births should be brought back above 500 thousand, so as to have 1.5 children per woman; today the Italian and Apulian value stands at 1.2 children per mother: only in this way could it be possible try to avoid having three over 65s for every young person in 2050. Incontrovertible data which, among other things, puts the stability of the pension system at serious risk. To prevent this from happening, it would be necessary to never fall below the threshold of 1.5 workers for every pensioner dependent on state social security.
But there are many open questions, many of which have been addressed in recent days in the States General of Birth, a moment of discussion to which the pontiff also did not fail to give his contribution. According to data processed by the National Institute of Statistics, starting from the Italian births at 379 thousand, there is a decrease in births compared to 2022 of 14 thousand units (-3.6%). Since 2008, the last year in which there was an increase in births in Italy, the decline has been as much as 197 thousand units (-34.2%). The average number of children per woman, the fertility rate, in Italy thus falls from 1.24 in 2022 to 1.20 in 2023, very close to the historic minimum of 1.19 children recorded way back in 1995. If the Italian situation it leaves no room for rosy prospects, what happens in Puglia is very similar. The decline in births is in fact a chronic fact, and so in 2023 for every Apulian woman of childbearing age the average number of children is similar to the national one. A value equal to 1.2 which is worth a ninth place in the ranking of the regions, far from the 1.42 of Trentino Alto Adige which detaches the rest of the group followed by Sicily (1.32), Campania and Calabria, where the average number of children per woman is 1, 29 and 1.28 respectively.
The professor at the University of Bari
«The birth rate decline is a problem that persists in Italy and also in Puglia – the words of Miriam Carella, professor of Demography and Social Statistics at the “Aldo Moro” University of Bari – and we continue to record a declining number of births and the data, albeit slowly, they get worse year after year. Couples and women in particular decide to have children at an increasingly advanced age and delay their reproductive choice – he continues – while at the same time deciding to have fewer and fewer, even if the desired model remains that of two children per couple.” Many interconnected problems are causing the birth of fewer and fewer children. «First of all – adds Carella – there are few women of childbearing age, a damage caused by the decline in the birth rate which began about forty years ago and which is becoming increasingly serious. The number of parents who can procreate is constantly decreasing. Added to this is a situation of occupational, economic and emotional uncertainty, let’s not forget that we have gone through an economic and health crisis, which slows down the desire to bring a child into the world. In particular, women pay for job instability and the lack of services.”
Professor Carella concludes: «It is imperative to implement structural and definitive solutions capable of boosting the birth rate and avoiding the irreversible crisis of society». Alongside the increasingly less positive data regarding births and the birth rate, other numbers that give pause for thought are precisely those concerning the average age of new mothers which, for 2023, was 32.5, up by more than 0.1 compared to to the previous year. Also in this case the Apulian value is similar to the national one, among the best in Italy, if it is true that the youngest mothers are the Sicilians (31.7 years), followed by those from Campania and those in their thirties who have an average age of 32.2. «The very low fertility rate highlights a now chronic demographic winter – Angelo Salento, professor of Sociology of economic processes and work at UniSalento – caused by widespread social malaise of a material nature. Low incomes, precarious and increasingly shoddy jobs, economic and social stability that arrives, when it arrives, at an increasingly advanced age – he continues – increasingly lacking services for a public welfare system that has undergone constant contractions in recent decades. The family relationship has also been weakened, so collaboration between parents and grandparents is increasingly complicated.”
Angelo Salento points out that the birth rate is particularly affecting the South, in the past the real demographic “reservoir” of the country, which is giving birth to fewer and fewer children compared to the North, and further says: «There are also a whole series of factors slowing down the birth rate psychosocial. The new generations experience situations of evident uncertainty, while the decision to procreate is linked to the perception of tranquility, serenity and happiness. In a highly competitive society like the contemporary one – the UniSalento professor points out – parents increasingly think of “investing” in a single child so that all the economic possibilities are directed towards him in order to guarantee him social victory. Given all these premises – comments Angelo Salento – we need to go back to investing in active employment policies and the implementation of essential services”.
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