Italy’s birth rate crisis is ‘irreversible’, say experts
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/13/zero-babies-born-in-358-italian-towns-amid-birth-crisis/
Italy’s birth rate crisis is ‘irreversible’, say experts
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/13/zero-babies-born-in-358-italian-towns-amid-birth-crisis/
35 Comments
ss: Italy’s demographic decline has been evident for at least a decade. “In 2014, the country entered a new phase of inexorable population decline,” Mr Rosina told La Repubblica newspaper.
It is not just that Italian couples are having fewer babies – many would like to leave the country altogether.
More than a third of Italy’s teenagers dream of emigrating as soon as they are old enough to do so, with the most favoured destination being the US (32 per cent), followed by Spain (12 per cent) and the UK (11 per cent), according to Istat.
Italy has one of the oldest and most sharply declining populations in the world.
Wants to reduce carbon emissions but needs more breeders to support the social programs and monetary systems dependent on perpetual economic “growth” and a large workforce under them to sustain themselves.
Quite a dilemma for them. We can’t just keep doubling the human population every 50 years to support pyramid scheme debt based fractional reserve monetary systems and social programs designed to sustain themselves with a large working force beneath them to pay for them. Absent new workers you will get inflation to pay for these social programs as new money is created into existence and handed out for people to basically do nothing.
They don’t want people to save and spend less because they need economic activity to maintain liquidity in the system so products are designed with planned obsolescence with a culture designed to get people to replace old stuff with new stuff all the time and basically constantly spend every cent they have and consume in a hamster wheel mentality. How do we reduce carbon emissions that way?
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I feel like all I see on my feed currently is about birth rates.
Not denying it could be a problem, but maybe 10-15 years ago “global overpopulation” was all the rage, with similar alarming headlines.
Just feels like another agenda being pushed.
“Why do all the young people want to move away? Can’t be poor employment prospects and high cost of living. Must be irreversible!”
European Redditors are constantly telling me how awful the US is so why do young people in Italy want to immigrate here ? Honest question.
Fucking hell. Another one of these doomsaying posts.
It’s ok for populations to increase and decrease! The world isn’t going to implode people.
The Italian peninsula during the height of the Roman Empire had tens of millions fewer people than today, and we all think about that once a week. Also today we have advanced technology and praxis to aid us if there are any true labor shortages.
A) every country finds that declining birth rates are perniciously hard to adjust even in totalitarian states and often even ‘successful’ measures have intensely bad side effects for a very long time.
B) Italy is famous for an unusual level of corruption and mismanagement by first world standards. Like the US for at least the past 40 years they also suffer from apathetic and often morbidly incompetent voters and systems. Unlike the US, their economy sucks and will not bail them out.
C) Italy is screwed.
Thanks for coming to my TED talks.
Reason being it’s hard to find good jobs in Italy that isn’t passed down by family. Everything requires a license that’s usually passed by family so why have children if they have no future.
Population “crisis”. Horrible for the economy. Great for planet Earth.
I am from Italy, but moved to the US 18 year ago. I come back on vacation most summers, and I have three children. At some point we went to the mall, and my kids went to the coin operated kiddie rides.
I was standing there, in the middle of the concourse, when it hit me: my kids were the ONLY children in the entire mall.
It was chilling.
“Oh no there’s too many people!” 10 Yeats later “oh no there’s not enough people.” At least everyone still has the convince of paper money and the protection of their respective governments.🤭 good job humans.
Of course it’s irreversible: by the time all the current politicians fucking over the next generations will be gone we’ll be a wasteland. Italy is going to face an economic and probably social collapse, soon and hard, and all that’s being done about it is actively trying to make it even worse just to favour old and rich people now.
I think the solution should be to prepare for a world with a decreasing population. What exactly does that look like?
* Programs like Social Security should invest their funds instead of being used as a slush fund for other government programs.
* Increased automation to reduce the number of workers needed. (Already being done)
* Have programs in place to help the elderly without family to take care of them.
* I think steering more people to home healthcare would also be good to ensure that an aging society has people to care for their elderly.
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Know what’s not in crisis anywhere? Extremely wealthy CEOs along with million and billionaires. Maybe we should focus on that.
Less humans is the most eco-friendly thing we could do for our planet
I’m genuinely sick of this birth rate shit everywhere. It really does feel like they are trying to make us women feel bad for not having kids, instead of fixing shit.
Employment even with a university degree doesn’t afford a living wage in most of the first world. So the population will decline until employers no longer have regulatory capture, or somehow by way of pixie dust and unicorn blood they choose to pay their staff above market rate.
This is the fate of the entire first world, capitalism cannibalizing its proponents.
34, house of property thanks to inheritance, steady job, barely making it for myself. A kid would kill me so no shit Sherlock
Crapitalism and Neoliberalism is choking life on the planet, including human life. Humanity is no more than lifestock to a system we’ve ourselves created, though we did not do so consciously. No single person decided on this outcome, yet here we are. Atleast we have the (slim) choice of waking up and taking control before we accelerate into oblivion.
“Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a physically finite planet is either mad or an economist.” – David Attenborough
It’s only a crisis for money making. Earth is overpopulated
So what Im hearing from this is that Italy is a shitty place to grow up.
What I find most interesting about the population decline is that on the surface, I would assume that a declining youth population, and in particular, a working population, that the trend should be accompanied by rising wages and lifestyle of that younger generation.
I imagine I’m not alone in my thinking. Much of the opposition by younger people to immigration is they don’t want outsiders undercutting their wages.
But it doesn’t seem to translate. The challenges of younger generations seem to be tough in all the couhtrie facing declines. The asian countries at the forefront of this issue have reports of intense work cultures that make family planning a low priority. Places like Greece put in rules allowing 6 day work weeks. This article talks about frustrations of Italian youth.
It seems like poltiical and other power structures means that the economic fallout of population decline is pushed on the younger generation. And it feels like the power to reverse trends will be the societies where the older generations are willing to accept the negative consequences, and aim to protect their younger generation.
Oh no, our world is crumbling from overpopulation and overconsumption but… won’t anyone think about… the *economy???*
Why are we always avoiding the elephant in the room- income disparity- when talking about population decline? The cost of living has made many young people feel they are unable to have children. When it takes two incomes to live how are you paying for daycare and daycare means someone else is with your child a large part of the time. Around the world economies want workers but society is not structured for families.
Europe is general is fucked. Other countries are not any better. Thats what happens when you prioritize greed over peoples well being, they squeezed everything oit of us.
I left 16 years ago.. still strugling but… at least i can afford not being poor af.
End result of rampant corruption and unfettered capitalism. Seems pretty obvious to me, personally.
Before starting: it’s unfortunate how this thread has been hijacked by several far right comments instead of leading to a fruitful discussion.
I’m talking as an Italian who lives abroad.
Salaries in Italy have decreased since 1990 compared to the rest of Europe where they have increased. This leads to situations like working in a Polish bank and making more than an Italian security guard or being the highest earner in my family by working in a Benelux call center. I was making more than my father, a skilled IT worker, at the end of his career. More than entry-level workers in finance in Milan.
The cost of life is similar to Western Europe (France, Germany, Benelux) if not higher (except for housing in most Italian cities) yet the salaries are half the ones you’d make in these countries. 1800€ net per month is seen as a good salary when you have years of experience. That’s an entry-level salary in these countries and the price of goods is the same.
In the bigger cities the housing has risen to Western European levels with these salaries: Milan costs minimum 4k per square meter, Rome is more than 3k. A lot of young people adapt because they can live with their parents, they flatshare or they inherited a place where to live.
All of this, and I didn’t even mention the political and cultural issues which can be more personal, leads to emigration. It’s usually both personal/cultural and economic reasons. I had my personal issues but I’ve never worked in Italy.
I’m planning on going back only because I could try to work in Switzerland by living in Italy and the houses near the border are relatively rich, well-connected to Milan and still on the cheaper side. Switzerland , even though there is double taxation, still pays more than jobs which are meant for experienced, skilled workers. I wouldn’t go back to work in Italy because, without my own place, I would have trouble living by myself instead of saving up and going on vacation like where I live. Even if I had my own place I’d save less than here where I’m renting.
In all of this… How are you supposed to have children if you make 1500 when it goes well and your girlfriend gets pregnant and can’t work? Preschool also tends to be incredibly expensive so a lot of people are put off by that. And that’s with the premise that you’re in a good area for jobs. I grew up near Milan where there’s full employment… Naples has 21% general unemployment for instance.
No wonder it’s irreversible with the current premises.
I don’t exactly know what “irreversible” means in this context. Typically, it means within a lifetime or so, and something like population isn’t recoverable in a lifetime. Not everyone will leave Italy, and the culture can change for whatever small number choose to remain. Wait 200 years and see.
Also, I’m American and love Italy, Italian cuisine and culture, and Italians in general! Come on over and take over Olive Garden or something, it’s an insult to your cuisine.
It’s the most predictable outcome when you have to work harder with longer hours for less pay with no access or guarantee for housing, education, or healthcare for yourself (let alone a child) that there’s no desire or incentive to even think about having children.
(Me a person who thinks there’s plenty of humans on the planet): GASP! anyway.
It’s really blowing my mind that pretty much in every country I hear the same things going on. No one can afford to have kids, housing prices are insane, people wanting to move. Why is this happening to all of simultaneously and what can we do about it if this is a world wide phenomena at this point??