In 2023, Italy saw a new negative record in terms of birth rate with births now below 400 thousand units, with a decrease of 3.6% compared to the previous year. Bolzano is the city where the most children are made, followed by Basilicata. Already Istat and now the Save the children report “Le Equilibriste, maternity in Italy” on the eve of Mother’s Day attest to alarming data: the average number of children is 1.20 in the female population of childbearing age, by convention considered between 15 and 49 years old, with a decrease compared to 2022 (1.24). Very far from the 2010 figure, when the relative maximum recorded in the last twenty years, equal to 1.44, was reached. Furthermore, Italy has the highest average age of conceiving a child in Europe (the first occurs on average at 31.6 years). The decline in the birth rate now also involves the foreign component of the population living in Italy (3 thousand fewer births in 2023 compared to the previous year). In the days in which the States General of the birth rate are being held, which has also been discussed in relation to freedom of expression (the protests of a group of young people effectively prevented Minister Eugenia Roccella from speaking), Pope Francis also spoke today: “The Italy is losing hope, the number of births is the first indicator of a people’s hope. Without children and young people, a country loses its desire for the future. Unfortunately, if we were to rely on this data, we would be forced to say that Italy is progressively losing its hope for the future, like the rest of Europe: the Old Continent is increasingly transforming into an old, tired and resigned continent, so busy exorcising loneliness and anxieties that it is no longer able to enjoy, in civilization of the gift, the true beauty of life”. Guests of Rosa Polacco Antonella Inverno, head of childhood policies at Save the Children, specialized in the international protection of human rights and the rights of children and adolescents, tells us about the report “Le Equilibriste, motherhood in Italy”, Marco Esposito, journalist and essayist, deals in particular with economics, for Rubbettino editore he has just published “Empty to lose. The demographic collapse, how to reverse course” (2024), Alessandra Minello, demographer, teaches historical demography at the University of Padua, among her books “It’s not a country for mothers” (Laterza 2022), Manuela Perrone, journalist for I Sole 24 Ore, with Monica D’Ascenzo wrote “Mamme d’Italia. Who they are, how they are, what they want” (Il Sole 24 ore editions, 2024).
10 May 2024
