Just an anecdote but one of my former co-workers recently had her first child. She complained about how the entire “industry” of child-rearing is in decline: preschools and historic toy stores closing, elementary schools disappearing entirely from the countryside and being consolidated in towns or cities, and accommodations for infants/toddlers like parking spots (i parcheggi rosa) and booster seats simply going away.
It’s one thing to see the number 1.24 on a graph but quite another to witness demographic decline in person.
I like what Hungary is doing and offering mothers huge income tax savings of 25% or more for the rest of their lives for having children
Really does seem like women, when having the choice, just do not want to gave 3 or more kids.
Result is a society which will be forever old until it dies out. But its replicating all over the world.
we can send you some syrian refugees if you want
Same old same old.
The government(s) could have built lots of new playgrounds and child care with fu**ing european money coming from the NextGen funds.
Instead, they did exactly nothing.
But hey, if you have one children and you have low income, you can earn from 54 to a whopping 189,20€ per month!
That will totally pay for the child care (500-600€ per month, 8:30am-16:30pm) and prevent women to give up their job (9am-18pm) because if you ask for part-time they look like you are an alien!
Pay better salaries and create a better work-life balance. Answer is simple, but it would affect profits in the short term.
It will affect them in the long run as there will be less people to produce and consume, but in the long term we all be dead.
[deleted]
Perhaps another tax cut for the rich, increase in housing price or lowering of purchasing power will convince them. If not that, surely the looming threat of war will, after all – we need soldiers. /s
Kids are expensive and i don’t get payed enough to give them a good start. Nad I don’t have time to spare, besides my 40 hour job.
I guess that’s a reason for many people.
They have been doing that for 50 years.
Great grandmas had 8 kids each, grandmas had 3, moms had 1 or 2, girls today are having zero
Momma Mia!!!
We never thought about having kids in Italy, since the system was basically beyond ill.
Since we moved to Sweden, we are now planning to have kids soon. What this country offers compared to what we were used to seems sci-fi to us.
It probably doesn’t help that as far as I know, Italy isn’t all that great when it comes to maternity leave and pregnancy/childbirth healthcare part. I’ve read how Italian women say that attitudes about pregnancies even from doctors are pretty conservative or downright old fashioned. Giving birth in Italy according to some women is not a good experience and doctors and midwives alike behave more like they’re in the 1950s than 2020s – at least that’s how I’ve seen it described. It doesn’t help that societally, traditional gender roles are still evident in Italian society and they sometimes strongly re-emerge when you have kids and elderly relatives flock out with all kinds of ideas about what is right and what is not.
I’ve also heard that wages are not very good in many parts of Italy relative to real estate costs, for example, and that young people have troubles getting meaningful well-enough paid jobs in order to have families and raise kids.
Would be interesting to hear from actual Italians if what I’ve heard and read is true, because that’s the impression I’ve got from a few Italians I’ve met over the years.
Italian women alreay do most of the housework, and would have to do even more with children. With an economy and lack of services that requires many women to work, that just isn’t workable.
Is it just the choice of women, or is it not also men not wanting to have children?
God forbid we make more kids, it’s uncool ! Women need to work same like men to feel equal /s
Yeah yeah hit me with all the downvotes
Link the amount of children to retirement age. It’s sustainable financially and gives the right incentives. Who would chose to work a decade more if they had the option not to?
Italian women has terribly high standard about men, well im not saying that non italian girls would allow someone whos not at least 8/10 to touch them, but ofc they prefer to stay single and lonely rather then build a family with an ugly male
Europe, please wake up…
You can not improve birth rate with couple euros thrown to a new family and calling it “familial support”.
This problem will persist, if not skyrocket in the next decade. Youth doesn’t want children since it’s marketed as a time consuming and limiting action; while the government(s) doesn’t actually support anyone who wants to have children. You are a woman who wants to have children and actually want to raise them personally with your husband; well, fuck you, here’s 200 euros if your newly blossomed family is worse than being poor. What do they expect, people around their late twenties to have children while they can’t even properly live by themselves?
This feels like the same story. Society isn’t making it easy to have kids. Society wonders why birth rates are declining.
Italy is the only EU country were median salaries DECREASED in 30 years.
That should answer many questions.
Why should we Italians have kids when we can’t even live a good life ourselves?
Nowadays in Italy either the rich or the stupid have children.
Public school is awful. Parental leave is too short.
Women (and men) are questioned about their will to have children, and if you say that you would have them, you won’t get a job, or worse they’ll make you sign illegal pre-contracts where you declare that you leave work on your own accord (no parental leave, no unemployment money and so on).
Prices of houses in big cities have skyrocketed (in Milan they rent “apartments” of 15 square meters for 950 euros without expenses, median salary is 1.5k, but “real” salaries can go below 1k). Cost of living is rising fast.
You are expected to work until 67 years of age. Who can raise kids working until they die?
We are doomed, and no one is doing shit.
I’m glad that Italy’s prohibition ban on surrogacy will help increase the birth rate. Wait . . .
They should be given government paid childcare, and financial incentives for the arduous task of carring a baby to term/ raising them. Should also be given incentives to cover for the loss of career growth over that period.
Because there is literally zero incentives to have children. Children are expensive and it’s an uphill battle to have and raise them. Corporate greed and capitalism have commodified parenthood. Cheers!
30 comments
Is cost of living in Italy high?
They know they won’t leave home until they’re 40!
Wouldn’t mind knocking up an Italian woman
signs of dying civilisation
More bambini now please!
Just an anecdote but one of my former co-workers recently had her first child. She complained about how the entire “industry” of child-rearing is in decline: preschools and historic toy stores closing, elementary schools disappearing entirely from the countryside and being consolidated in towns or cities, and accommodations for infants/toddlers like parking spots (i parcheggi rosa) and booster seats simply going away.
It’s one thing to see the number 1.24 on a graph but quite another to witness demographic decline in person.
I like what Hungary is doing and offering mothers huge income tax savings of 25% or more for the rest of their lives for having children
Really does seem like women, when having the choice, just do not want to gave 3 or more kids.
Result is a society which will be forever old until it dies out. But its replicating all over the world.
we can send you some syrian refugees if you want
Same old same old.
The government(s) could have built lots of new playgrounds and child care with fu**ing european money coming from the NextGen funds.
Instead, they did exactly nothing.
But hey, if you have one children and you have low income, you can earn from 54 to a whopping 189,20€ per month!
That will totally pay for the child care (500-600€ per month, 8:30am-16:30pm) and prevent women to give up their job (9am-18pm) because if you ask for part-time they look like you are an alien!
Pay better salaries and create a better work-life balance. Answer is simple, but it would affect profits in the short term.
It will affect them in the long run as there will be less people to produce and consume, but in the long term we all be dead.
[deleted]
Perhaps another tax cut for the rich, increase in housing price or lowering of purchasing power will convince them. If not that, surely the looming threat of war will, after all – we need soldiers. /s
Kids are expensive and i don’t get payed enough to give them a good start. Nad I don’t have time to spare, besides my 40 hour job.
I guess that’s a reason for many people.
They have been doing that for 50 years.
Great grandmas had 8 kids each, grandmas had 3, moms had 1 or 2, girls today are having zero
Momma Mia!!!
We never thought about having kids in Italy, since the system was basically beyond ill.
Since we moved to Sweden, we are now planning to have kids soon. What this country offers compared to what we were used to seems sci-fi to us.
It probably doesn’t help that as far as I know, Italy isn’t all that great when it comes to maternity leave and pregnancy/childbirth healthcare part. I’ve read how Italian women say that attitudes about pregnancies even from doctors are pretty conservative or downright old fashioned. Giving birth in Italy according to some women is not a good experience and doctors and midwives alike behave more like they’re in the 1950s than 2020s – at least that’s how I’ve seen it described. It doesn’t help that societally, traditional gender roles are still evident in Italian society and they sometimes strongly re-emerge when you have kids and elderly relatives flock out with all kinds of ideas about what is right and what is not.
I’ve also heard that wages are not very good in many parts of Italy relative to real estate costs, for example, and that young people have troubles getting meaningful well-enough paid jobs in order to have families and raise kids.
Would be interesting to hear from actual Italians if what I’ve heard and read is true, because that’s the impression I’ve got from a few Italians I’ve met over the years.
Italian women alreay do most of the housework, and would have to do even more with children. With an economy and lack of services that requires many women to work, that just isn’t workable.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/980620/person-responsible-for-household-chores-by-gender-italy/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/980620/person-responsible-for-household-chores-by-gender-italy/)
Is it just the choice of women, or is it not also men not wanting to have children?
God forbid we make more kids, it’s uncool ! Women need to work same like men to feel equal /s
Yeah yeah hit me with all the downvotes
Link the amount of children to retirement age. It’s sustainable financially and gives the right incentives. Who would chose to work a decade more if they had the option not to?
Italian women has terribly high standard about men, well im not saying that non italian girls would allow someone whos not at least 8/10 to touch them, but ofc they prefer to stay single and lonely rather then build a family with an ugly male
Europe, please wake up…
You can not improve birth rate with couple euros thrown to a new family and calling it “familial support”.
This problem will persist, if not skyrocket in the next decade. Youth doesn’t want children since it’s marketed as a time consuming and limiting action; while the government(s) doesn’t actually support anyone who wants to have children. You are a woman who wants to have children and actually want to raise them personally with your husband; well, fuck you, here’s 200 euros if your newly blossomed family is worse than being poor. What do they expect, people around their late twenties to have children while they can’t even properly live by themselves?
This feels like the same story. Society isn’t making it easy to have kids. Society wonders why birth rates are declining.
Italy is the only EU country were median salaries DECREASED in 30 years.
That should answer many questions.
Why should we Italians have kids when we can’t even live a good life ourselves?
Nowadays in Italy either the rich or the stupid have children.
Public school is awful. Parental leave is too short.
Women (and men) are questioned about their will to have children, and if you say that you would have them, you won’t get a job, or worse they’ll make you sign illegal pre-contracts where you declare that you leave work on your own accord (no parental leave, no unemployment money and so on).
Prices of houses in big cities have skyrocketed (in Milan they rent “apartments” of 15 square meters for 950 euros without expenses, median salary is 1.5k, but “real” salaries can go below 1k). Cost of living is rising fast.
You are expected to work until 67 years of age. Who can raise kids working until they die?
We are doomed, and no one is doing shit.
I’m glad that Italy’s prohibition ban on surrogacy will help increase the birth rate. Wait . . .
They should be given government paid childcare, and financial incentives for the arduous task of carring a baby to term/ raising them. Should also be given incentives to cover for the loss of career growth over that period.
Because there is literally zero incentives to have children. Children are expensive and it’s an uphill battle to have and raise them. Corporate greed and capitalism have commodified parenthood. Cheers!