Le Figaro newspaper said that Italy, which witnessed a million births in 1964, recorded only 393,000 births in 2022, compared to about 700,000 deaths, according to the National Institute of Statistics, which made the Prime Minister… Georgia Meloni It works to stave off the threat of demographic decline by placing the family at the center of public policies, although halting these shifts will take years.
The newspaper explained that these fears resulting from the collapse of the birth rate are not unique in Italy, but they prompted Meloni to make the demographic issue a central topic, and resolve to put the family at the heart of her work.
“For several years we have felt the awareness and desire to act, but stagnation on such a path may take many years,” says Maria Rita Testa, a demographer at Luis University in Rome.
Fertility rates
“This situation is the result of a trend that began in the early 1970s, when Italian women began to postpone having their first child in order to prioritize their professional integration,” explains Testa, which made the fertility rate fall below the threshold of 2.1 children per woman, a level at which generations are no longer renewed. Under it is guaranteed, and this rate has even eroded to 1.24 children per woman, one of the lowest rates in Europe.
The crisis is not limited to rural and deprived areas, but rather affects the most prosperous areas, so that the population of Italy may decline from 59 million people today to less than 46 million people in 2080, according to the alarming forecasts of the Statistical Institute.
Georgia Meloni raised the slogan “God, Homeland, Family” and established the Ministry of Family and Childbirth, headed by Minister Eugenia Rossella, who said, “Italian women say they want to have two children on average, but their other needs and other expectations often push them to delay this project.”
She adds, “The age at which Italian women give birth to their first child is the highest in Europe,” especially since the country lacks nurseries and day care centers, and promotes equal pay between men and women only marginally.
The pretext of the demographic crisis is used to demand a tightening of immigration policy, and the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida – who is at the same time a relative of Giorgia Meloni – caused an uproar with his statements in which he said: “There is an Italian culture and race that must be protected,” and he continued, “We cannot surrender to the idea of racial replacement.” “.
But under pressure from the need for manpower, the Prime Minister recently announced the allocation of 450,000 residence permits over 3 years for foreign workers, at the request of Italian businessmen.
