A country without babies? Welcome to Italy

By Pauline Horwits

ROME, Nov 27 - 1,000 euros to start a family? Tax breaks like this is what Italian politicians have been dangling over the past few years to boost the country's stalled birth rate.

It doesn't appear to be working.

According to 2001 population statistics, Italy has a birth rate of 1.23-children-per-woman, one of the lowest rates in the Western world. That compares with 2.1 in the United States, and a worldwide average of 3.3.

The Italian birth rate has been in decline since the mid-1960s. Today, Italians over 65 outnumber children under the age of six by a two-to-one margin.  The aging population means fewer workers to pay taxes and pay into health care and pensions of the elderly. If this continues, Italy’s population in 2050 could drop to less than 60 percent of its current size at the start of the decade.   

The reasons for this decrease are highly debated. Anthropologist and writer Ida Magli tells British Medical Journal says, “In this country, there is no help for a mother with a child. So maternity destroys her chances of working and realizing herself.” 

To jumpstart the birth rate, the government has been floating the idea of tax breaks for couples who have babies. In 2003, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government began offering 1,000 euros to have a second child; The Sunday Telegraph at the time described it as a form of "bribery". 

The Matthew Online interviewed Danette Anderson, a working mother of four, about the country's declining birth rate. Anderson, an American who married an Italian and who is raising her family in Rome,said it's time the government did more to help young parents plan for a family.

“You either need to be crazy or filthy rich to have kids," said Anderson. "I belong to the crazy.”  She added state-sponsored daycare programs would ease the burden of parents trying to juggle a workload with a family.