Italian welfare systems are already struggling to cope with the ageing of the population, and there is no consensus on what to do about it.
Italy has long had one of the lowest birth rates in the EU, and the country is ageing at a much faster rate than other member states, and it appears to be getting worse.
According to government statistics, the average number of children per Italian woman has dropped from 1.24 in 2022 to 1.2 in 2023. Experts say that if the country’s population crisis continues, Italy’s population of 59 million could fall by almost 1 million by 2030.
And the effects of the crisis are already being felt, with the ageing of the population causing problems for Italy’s healthcare and pension systems.
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This is pretty much what is happening in most developed economies, unfortunately. Because real estate became a very profitable investment, and as a result we are now running out of affordable accommodation.
It is going to be interesting, when the baby boomer generation starts dying because of old age. There is only so much that buying up for investment purposes can maintain a market without people wanting to life in the houses.
They would leave the houses empty to keep prices high.
Italy’s problems aren’t new. Am Italian.
Although this sounds reasonable, the countries with the highest birth rates in the world are Niger, Chad, Congo and Somalia. If not being able to afford a high quality of life was the cause of decreasing birth rates as you say, we would expect these countries to be doing even worse than Italy because being able to afford your basic needs is even worse there.
The solution to this is more housing.
Destroy land downtown and put in higher density and more public transport. Put in LVT. Rents and houses will decrease in price. Discretionary income will increase which means taxes can go up but people can actually buy more goods and services. That will grow the job market and the economy and further raise taxes revenue. Then you can also fund things like childcare and paid work leave which will solve the declining birth rate (but I think it should still be below 2 ideally and countries need to deal with that)
There are easy solutions to these problems within the system we have. Nothing extreme needs to be done but they involve governments flexing their muscles and pissing off a few people with money and power (including the people in government making money off this system)
What will actually happen is governments will rather let the whole system collapse in on itself and will increase immigration which will keep house prices high and wages low.
You make it sound like only one issue will fix it. Other countries that tried to increase birth rate, needless to say mostly for nationalistic/racist reasons have so far failed. Look e.g. at Hungary. They try everything but the birth rate is still declining.
There needs to be much more affordable housing and public transportation, but immigration is also inevitable in helping mitigate the effects of the aging population. And I think migration is a good, normal thing to happen. Humans have been moving around all the time, otherwise we wouldn’t be spread all over the globe.
But there also needs to be an environment where people feel comfortable getting children when thinking about climate change and the future world that they’d bring the children into.
So there are many things that go hand in hand and what I read from your comment is more like migration problem must stop, build housing solution done.
Lowering population is an overblown issue. House prices will collapse and everyone will have a lot more money to spend on things like kids.
Humans have been moving around all the time, otherwise we wouldn’t be spread all over the globe
That comment is not about immigration that’s about expansion. Humans mostly fight other humans that come onto their land, if anything that’s the norm. So I don’t think that’s conveys the point you want.
This is an issue all over the Western world, including the US.
Open the borders and get more population
