'The village will die' - Italy looks for answers to decline in number of babies

Ammon

7 days ago

Ammon News - Winding down the narrow main street of his north Italian town, Giacomo de Luca points to the businesses that have closed: two supermarkets, a barbershop, restaurants – all with shutters drawn and faded signs above their doors.
The pretty town of Fregona at the foot of the mountains is emptying out like many here, as Italians have fewer children and increasingly migrate to bigger places or move abroad.
Now the local primary school is at risk and the mayor is worried.
"The new Year One can't go ahead because there are only four children. They want to shut it down," De Luca explains. The minimum class size to get funding is 10 children.
"The drop in births and in the population has been very, very sharp."
The mayor calculates that the population of Fregona, an hour's drive north of Venice, has shrunk by almost a fifth in the past decade.
By June this year there were just four new births and most of the 2,700 or so remaining residents are elderly, from the men drinking their morning prosecco to the women filling their bags with chicory and tomatoes at the weekly market.
For De Luca, closing the school reception class would be a tide-turner: if the children leave Fregona to study, he fears they will never look back.
So he's been touring the surrounding area, even visiting a nearby pizza factory, trying to persuade parents to send their children to his town and help keep the school open.
"I'm offering to pick them up with a minibus, we've offered for children to stay at school until six in the evening, all paid for by the council," the mayor told the BBC, his sense of urgency obvious.
"I'm worried. Little by little, if things keep going like this, the village will die."
Nationwide problem
Italy's demographic crisis extends far beyond Fregona and it is deepening.
Over the past decade, the population nationwide has contracted by almost 1.9 million and the number of births has fallen for 16 consecutive years.
On average, Italian women are now having just 1.18 babies, the lowest level ever recorded. That's under the EU average fertility rate of 1.38 and far below the 2.1 needed to sustain the population.
Despite its efforts to encourage childbirth, and much talk of family-friendly politics, Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government has been unable to stop the slide.
"You have to think a lot before having a baby," Valentina Dottor admits when we meet on Fregona's main square, her 10-month-old daughter Diletta cooing in a pushchair.
Valentina gets an allowance of around €200 (£175) a month for Diletta's first year, but just missed out on the government's new Baby Bonus of €1,000 for children born in 2025.
There are new tax breaks, too, and longer parental leave.
But Valentina now needs to return to work and says accessing affordable childcare is still very tough.
"There are not many babies, but not many kindergarten [places] either," she says. "I am lucky to have my grandmother take care of my daughter. If not, I don't know where I would leave her."
That's why her friends are wary of motherhood.
"It's difficult - because of work, schools, the money," Valentina says. "There is some help, but it's not enough to have babies.
"It won't solve the problem."
BBC