The numbers are staggering. In 2022, Italy gave birth to less than 400,000 children according to the National Institute of Statistics (Istat), while, over the same period, the country recorded more than 700,000 deaths. If the fall in the birth rate in the Peninsula has been following a downward curve for several years, never since the unification of the country in 1861 has the number of births been so low. It is to ward off this “demographic winter”, an expression passed into the current language of the Italians, that the “states general of the birth rate” were created. The third edition of this congress bringing together political and economic leaders was held in Rome on Thursday and Friday.
A sign that the demographic problem is worrying, the event brought together the entire political spectrum of the country, from ministers to leaders of opposition parties, such as Elly Schlein, secretary general of the Democratic Party (center left) or Giuseppe Conte, boss of the 5 star movement (antisystem). Friday morning, the platform brought together the president of the council, Giorgia Meloni, and Pope Francis, warmly applauded by the assembly.
“We live in a time when it is increasingly difficult to talk about birth, motherhood and family, explained the head of government. Sometimes it almost feels like a revolutionary act. » The leader of Fratelli d’Italia also recalled how the birth rate and the family remained a “top priority” of his mandate. In fact, the revival of births and the strengthening of family policies figured at the top of his electoral program in 25 points last summer.
During the two days, a litany of figures gave the measure of the demographic collapse of Italy. “By 2042, the GDP of our country risks falling by 18% if the birth rate remains so low”, worried the Minister of the Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti (League, far right). “A great country that loses inhabitants risks no longer being a great country”, stressed Giancarlo Blangiardo, president of Istat until last March. According to its projections, Italy could lose 11 million inhabitants in the coming years if nothing is done to stem the drop in births. An apocalyptic picture to which the Minister of Education, Giuseppe Valditara, contributed by specifying that, within ten years, the number of schoolchildren could drop from 7.4 million to 6 million.
“Two sides of the same coin”
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