No Amore for Italy?
When it comes to its ageing population and collapsing birth rate, Italy might be in for a rough ride
It’s a little unsettling that Italy, the land of vino, pasta, and amore, might be slacking on that last part.
According to a recent article by The Local, Italy is on track to lose a fifth of its population in fifty years.
What will that mean for a nation that, according to the excellent book, Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More Than 60 Countries, is one of the countries, along with North Korea and Russia, least receptive to change? In a global economy full of immigration, emigration and mass migration, what happens to a country that’s too set in its ways to embrace the very changes that might potentially save it? Or do we have faith that a country that has survived as long as Italy has is more than capable of looking out for itself?
There are several reasons for this population decline that I will get into here, but the most obvious reason is that Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe.
Fewer bouncing baby Italians spells disaster for a country that’s old and getting older. Nearly a quarter of Italy’s population is 65+, and according to the Istat National Statistics Agency, that’s expected to increase by 35% by 2050. So, what happens exactly when a nation of retirees drawing pensions doesn’t have new generations of tax payers to feed into the system?
First, let’s look at the changing dynamic of Italian youth culture. Young Italians don’t date in the same way they used to. Dating is expensive, and no one has much money. Hookups obviously aren’t uncommon, but most kids prefer to hang out in largish groups of other kids—and then go home alone. Keep in mind, “home” is almost always with siblings and parents, not conducive to having a sex life. And there’s always the no-fuss, no-muss, no-cost, no-confusion alternative to dating a complicated human, which is uncomplicated YouPorn.
Rent is cost-prohibitive in most major Italian cities, even for young people who are lucky enough to have a job. The mean salary of a Roman wage earner is 1200 euros a month. The average cost of an apartment in the city center of Rome is almost 700 euros.
I, personally, have never seen a 700 euro apartment listed anywhere in Rome or near it. The real estate listings I’ve looked at are closer to 1200-1500 euros a month. This is one of many reasons why most Italian young people live at home, sometimes all their lives. Houses tend to be passed down from one generation to the next; free rent is nothing to sneeze at; Italians are, taken on the aggregate, property rich and cash poor. For them, it makes sense to stay close to family.
But Italy has a much bigger problem than that. It has a significant brain drain of talented, well-educated young Italians moving abroad for work. Many of them—too many—relocate to cities like Berlin, have a hard time finding work there either, and end up waiting tables at a local pizzeria. How’s that for irony? As far as Italy’s population problem goes, as a general rule, underpaid, under-utilized young people, particularly educated ones, often don’t have children until they’re at a better place in life. Or at all.
There simply aren’t enough jobs in Italy for degreed professionals. Cronyism is alive and well in Italian companies, many of which are mom-and-pop shops anyway, designed to promote from within a family. In bigger companies, higher-ups tend to be older than their American counterparts and generally unwilling to make room for young blood. This contributes to the overall sluggishness of upward mobility, which must be frustrating to those who spent six years at university.
The Italian government recognizes that they have a looming demographic crisis on their hands. Yet instead of providing a path for citizenship to people who want to live there, pay taxes, and yes, possibly bear young, they’ve enacted a universal child allowance under the so-called Family Act, which is intended to make starting a family more affordable. The amount ranges from 50-175 euros per child, per month, which is a nice gesture, but … when’s the last time anyone checked the price of diapers? Is this really enough money to make a difference to potential parents?
The difference between a country like Italy and countries in Northern Europe, say, is that citizens in both countries are taxed at a high rate, but in the case of Northern Europeans, that tax money comes back to them in the form of social services like healthcare, free pre-K, retirement pensions, paid maternity/paternity leave, and low-cost university. Italians’ tax money doesn’t come back to them in quite the same way.
All this to suggest that perhaps Italy’s demographic crisis is, at least in part, a crisis of its own making.
With the cost of everyday goods on the rise, two incomes are more necessarily than ever here in Italy. Women work. Perhaps this, too, contributes to an overall reluctance to have children.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next fifty years. Italy has managed to survive for the last 2000+ just by doing what Italy does best: endure, endure, make art, make pasta, endure.
Always and forever, viva Italia.
Care to make any predictions about Italy’s fate? I’m all ears. Leave your comments in the section below.