Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni promised to work to avoid the risk of family collapse (Reuters)

Italy, which saw one million births in 1964, recorded only 393,2022 births in 700, compared to about <>,<> deaths, according to the National Institute of Statistics, prompting Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to work to ward off the risk of demographic decline by placing the family at the center of public policies, although it will take years to stop these transformations.

These fears stemming from the collapse of the birth rate are not unique in Italy, but they have prompted Meloni to make the demographic issue a central theme and resolve to put the family at the heart of its work.

Maria Rita Testa, a demographer at the University of Louis in Rome, said: "We have been conscious and willing to work for several years, but it can take many years for such a path to stale.

Fertility rates

"This situation is the result of a trend that began in the early seventies, when Italian women began to postpone having their first child to prioritize their professional integration," explains Testa, bringing the fertility rate below the threshold of 2.1 children per woman, a level below which generational renewal is no longer guaranteed, but has eroded to 1.24 children per woman, one of the lowest in Europe.

The crisis is not limited to rural and disadvantaged areas, but affects the most prosperous areas, so that Italy's population could fall from 59 million today to less than 46 million in 2080, according to the statistical institute's alarming projections.

Giorgia Meloni raised the slogan "God, Fatherland, Family" and established the Ministry of Family and Childbirth headed by Minister Eugenia Rossella, who said that "Italian women say they want to have two children on average, but their other needs and other expectations often push them to delay this project."

"The age at which Italian women have their first child is the highest in Europe," she adds, especially as the country lacks nurseries and daycare centres, and only marginally promotes equal pay between men and women.

The argument of the demographic crisis is used to demand tougher migration policy, and Agriculture Minister Francesco Lolobrigida, who is also a relative of Georgia Meloni, caused a stir with his remarks: "There is an Italian culture and race that must be protected," and continued, "We cannot give in to the idea of ethnic replacement."

But under pressure from the need for manpower, the head of government recently announced the allocation of 450,3 residence permits over <> years to foreign workers, at the request of Italian businessmen.

Source: Le Figaro