Talking constantly about aging Italian populationdemographer María Rita Testa often recalls an anecdote. “In Liguria, where For every child, there are 7.8 years old and the average age is 49, most Children’s goods stores are not closedbut they were re-transformed. Now they sell diapers for the elderly.”, says this professor from the Luiss University of Rome. “It’s just a curiosity, but it makes me think maybe we should start. designing other alternatives “To sustain GDP growth,” this expert says. low fertility rate Proportion of Italian families (1.25 children per woman today). “Another factor is that there Insufficient number of people of childbearing age In an interview with the Prensa Ibérica group for El Periódico de Catalunya, he adds that many young people eventually emigrate because of a lack of hope.
Italy is the oldest country in Europe. The department, which includes 40 researchers from the National Institute of Statistics, is headed by demographer Gerardo Gallo. census He has studied the phenomenon from Italy and has a similar view. The data in your most recent report has been generated a wave of articles Reason: The report revealed that the number of people over the age of 65 in Italy has reached a record level. 5.4 years old for each child 0-6 years old. What’s more: the same study also showed: Italy lost its population for the sixth consecutive year in 2021. Specifically, the country has about 200,000 fewer residents compared to the previous year and the median age of the population was 46 (just 10 years ago the average was 43).
no historical comparisons
Diagnosis unanimous: it’s about aging lack of compromise policies family and work, a void that fatally wounds fertility. “There is no maternity benefit policy in Italy. It never happened, and even if it did now, the results would not be seen for years, perhaps more than a decade. That’s the case here and now,” emphasizes Gallo.
“A decline without historical comparison, even since 2015, Even migration flows won’t save the country. Since then, the number of immigrants Italy has received is no longer sufficient to prevent the decline of residents”, adds Testa.
Migration is an important factor
“The situation would have been even worse without immigrants, Italy’s population would have been cut by half in 40 years,” adds Gallo. epidemicBehaving cruelly towards the elderly and vulnerable people, n. strike. “Aunt More than 700,000 people died last year human and only about 400,000 people were born,” explains the demographer.
The problem is that, in addition, the phenomenon comes from afar, and now structural, experts remember. “The fertility rate first fell from two children per family in 1977, a number that warrants generational change,” says Testa. However, it was precisely in those years (when the Italian demographic pyramid began to present imbalances) that the State undertook policies to protect the elderlyrather than supporting families and the youngest. Conclusion: The researcher highlights that currently about 16% of GDP is devoted to pensions and only 4% to families.
endangered youth
Gabriele Segre, director of the Swiss social promotion foundation Vittorio Segre, drew a strange parallel when comparing Turkey days ago in an article in the ‘Domani’ newspaper about the consequences of this situation. youth with some Italians endangered animal species. In Italy, “the population aged 15 to 64 years could fall from 37.7 million to 28.9 million in the next three decades,” Segre wrote. a serious obstacle to the challenges facing the world.
“This fact poses a serious risk” on serious social, political and cultural crisis It’s where our western world collapsed,” said Segre, and attributed this to his indifference to politics. One thing that can easily be verified by looking closely at the daily situation in Italian politics, where old age pensions continue to be the subject of serious debate and concrete measures, where rhetoric about young people rarely leads to policy initiatives. and length.
However, something may be changing. In fact, in recent years, the topic is more and more present. Italian public agendaeven with bold suggestions on how to use artificial intelligence and robots to reduce productivity loss derived from this demographic decline and replaced people in the most routine tasks. In fact, the Executor of the far right Giorgia Melony created recently a new ministry portfolio dedicated to the subject he calls Ministry of Family, Birth and Equal Opportunity, leading to criticism from feminists. Also, that portfolio without portfolio and it has not carried out any significant reform for the time being.