Italy clings to the train of the best, but always in last class. Whether it's for the number of graduates or the level of salaries, we're always there at the bottom of the international rankings battling for the black jersey with Greece or Turkey. But there is an issue that affects a large part of our country with direct consequences on various sectors of society, locally and globally: the lowest birth rate in the EU. We are prisoners of what the technicians call the "demographic trap". But how to get out of it? From 8 July, a book written by two journalists from Il Messaggero will be available in bookstores and on Amazon. Luca Cifoni e Diodate Pyron: “The cradle trap”, Rubbettino. Cifoni and Pirone tried to put all the pieces of the puzzle in order. They provide a complete picture of the situation but also give hope, because it is possible to emerge from the tragedy of desertification as Sweden and Germany have already partially done and, in Italy, the two autonomous provinces of Trentino and Alto Adige.
In Italy fewer and fewer children (and it's getting worse)
We are the second largest manufacturerEurope with a cultural heritage envied by the whole world. Yet, we fail to exploit our potential and always lag behind the others. How is it possible? According to Cifoni and Pirone, the answer is simple: we stay afloat thanks to the Italian men and women. We don't have raw materials (and what we have we leave underground) but on the other hand we possess a mysterious and fascinating ability to get by, which seems to be granted only to us.
But if Italians are Italy's wealth why are we last in Europe for the lowest birth rate? And we already have some time stopped having children. Last year we gave birth to 6,8 for every thousand inhabitants, the lowest birth rate in the Old Continent, from Portugal to Russia, half compared to the 742.000 French. The fact is that last year only 399.431 Italians were born, the lowest figure ever reached in Italy; in 2020 there were 404.892 newborns, in 2019 420.084, while in 2018 there were 439.747. And there doesn't seem to be any good news: a further decline is expected in 2022 due to the reflections of the war in Ukraine, with the rise in raw materials and energy and unstoppable inflation.
An “almost irreversible demographic crisis”
Today we are less than 59 million and in a few years, in spite of much talk of immigration, we have lost the population equivalent to a metropolis like Milan. Even the American entrepreneur Elon Musk, last May 25, sounded the alarm with a tweet to his 100 million followers: "If this continues, Italy will be left without a population".
We are in an emergency that is talked about too little even if our very existence is at stake. To realize this we have to fix a stake: why don't we have more children? For many reasons, the authors argue, but the main one has to do with a law of nature: 40 years ago we started having few children and therefore today our young people are few and form few couples capable of procreating. Today's very few children will create even fewer couples in 20 or 30 years and automatically even fewer Italians will be born. There is also a phenomenon of low fertility of women, which decrease by 200 thousand a year. For the area, this translates into depopulated villages, closed schools, millions of empty houses, restricted hospital networks, fewer businesses and less innovation, entire areas of the country without an economy. In 2050 we risk being 5 million less, as if the Veneto disappeared. And this - in a global scenario like the one re-emerged with the Russian invasion of Ukraine - will also mean loss of international weight.
Italians prisoners of the "demographic trap": how to get out of it?
The book, consisting of 6 chapters, proposes 9 actions to get out of the demographic trap, ranging from the identification of a new language on children to labor reforms, from the strengths and weaknesses of the new tool of the universal single check to the role of companies in assisting employees who start a family. There is only one solution to escape from the "cradle trap": launch a large systematic and collective campaign. A kind of cultural revolution that makes Italians go back to having children. A strong intervention by the State is not enough. We need more immigration. More families are needed, not just the traditional ones. It is essential to enable Italian women to start giving birth much earlier than today's almost 32-year average because having one child per couple certainly does not stop the demographic crisis. The State and the Regions will have to increase aid to families but everyone's commitment is essential: entrepreneurs, mayors, families, trade unions, volunteers, individuals. We must never forget - the authors underline - that for build our future the Italians remain indispensable.
