Posted on 03/25/2010 4:50:59 PM PDT by NYer
ROME, March 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new report issued Tuesday has revealed that 53.4 per cent of Italian families have no children. The report said that 21.9 per cent of households have only one child and just 19 per cent have two. While mass immigration contributes to Italy’s population growth, the country’s rock-bottom fertility rate of 1.31 children born per woman has resulted in a largely childless and aging nation.
The report was compiled by the Milan-based International Center for Family Studies that identified the reason for Italians’ reluctance to procreate as “economic reasons.” 19.5 per cent of families interviewed cited the lack of money for not having more children. 8.9 per cent said it is their inability to juggle families and jobs and 0.3 per cent blamed insufficient housing space.
An examination of the effects of the global economic crisis, however, showed that only 16.4 per cent of families could be described as “below the poverty line.” But 37.2 per cent of the respondents claimed that they had trouble making it to the end of the month, with a further 22 per cent saying they sometimes had financial trouble.
The report found that the average monthly expenditure for dependent children is 35.3 per cent of the total family expenditure.
Others cited the small size of their homes, the precariousness of their job situations and lack of available childcare. However, the statistics in the report show that a massive 57.8 per cent of childless households merely said they had no children out of “personal choice.” Reasons for this personal choice, the report said, include a general sense of uncertainty about the future and the inherent difficulties involved in raising children.
The report made several suggestions for dealing with this national crisis, including increasing government family allowances and reforming personal income tax deductions.
Speaking at the report’s presentation in Milan, Gianfranco Fini, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, said there should be a fast-track procedure for children born in Italy of foreign parents to become Italian citizens. “Talking about a seven, ten or even 12-year wait is fine for adults but this is not acceptable for children,” he said.
Italy’s demographics show that it is following the same depopulation trends of most western countries since the 1960s. With decades of a below-replacement level birth rate, population growth in Italy has petered out, despite continued foreign immigration, with 2009 statistics showing -0.047 per cent increase.
The post-WWI economic boom saw a large part of the traditionally rural population move into the cities, but urbanization did not immediately result in a drop in the birth rate. It was not until the global “Sexual Revolution” in the 1970s, with its introduction of artificial contraceptives and, later, legalized and state-funded abortion that the fertility rate suddenly plunged below replacement.
It has only been since the introduction of millions of non-Italian immigrants that the birth rate has seen any recovery. According to government statistics, about 7.5 per cent of the population of Italy are recent immigrants.
Since joining the Euro, the personal wealth of Italians has grown, while the birth rate continues to fall and life expectancy increases. The overall average life expectancy in Italy is 80.2 years. The result, as with most western countries, has been a demographic shift towards an aging population with few young people entering the work force to support them.
Families in Italy continue to be tight-knit, with many children living with parents well into adulthood. Fewer Italians are getting married and those who do are waiting until later in life.
As of 2009, the median age for women in Italy was 44.8 years, the age at which conception is less likely.
Government efforts to stop the decline, mostly in the form of offers of cash for children, have largely failed. In 2003, Roberto Maroni, labor and welfare minister in Silvio Berlusconi's administration, offered 1000 Euros to every woman who had a second child. The bonus was paid to only 190,000 women.
Even in the absence of definitive information, I deplore attributing such a decision to selfishness.
OK, I didn’t explain myself as well as I should have. I wanted to say that I don’t think that the bulk of those choosing to not reproduce (as post 16 suggested) do so because of selfishness. Can’t prove it, but that’s the way it seems to me.
Sure, some people are materialistic and that plays a hand in not having children but I am maintaining that they are not the norm. Some choose to not pass on bad genes (that’s me), for example. Others don’t have enough money to raise children. Some women are not in love with their husbands (some are battered wives) and don’t want children for that reason. And some don’t think that they would be introducing children to a particularly good environment (that’s me, too).
Oh yes, I forgot something. Some people just don’t like children. And it’s good that they don’t have them, don’t you think?
“I think that a majority of the decisions to not have children is that the would-be parents do not see their society as being worthwhile in which to bring up children...”
You are 1,000% right!
Fantastic writing, btw.
And some don’t think that they would be introducing children to a particularly good environment (that’s me, too).
” Reasons for this personal choice, the report said, include a general sense of uncertainty about the future and the inherent difficulties involved in raising children.”
So - the socialism has cause a general malaise where they lack hope for their future, and therefore children are a “burden”.
It is Atlas Shrugged, only in Italy.
From Wikipedia: Combined oral contraceptive pill
Although the FDA approved the first oral contraceptive in 1960, contraceptives were not available to married women in all states until Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 and were not available to unmarried women in all states until Eisenstadt v. Baird in 1972.
First the Pill for married women in 1965, then the Pill for all women in 1972, then Roe v. Wade in 1973.
Proving once again that the womb is the weapon of mass destruction. Say what you will, the muslims control their women and it is culture NOT economics that determines the birth rate. They will replace us because they can and they will. Either we man up and reproduce in return or simply fade away.
Italians are not the best Catholics. Irish and Polish are tied for first place. Then Italian, then French. I don’t know where Spain fits in. The Irish priests used to wring their hands in despair at our brand of Catholicism.
But remember that the Muslims control women in not the best ways. Better to witness to the Gospel through witnessing to the faith of Christ.
“Another possibility is to outlaw The Pill. It’s been an unbelievably destructive force in Western society”
As a woman........I 100% agree. But, the women sheeple will never give up their little pills.
What holds up the welfare state is all the taxpaying middle-class people. If the number of middle class workers goes down, the state will collapse. No money for pensions, no money for government health care, and no money for welfare. Even those with stocks and bonds -- what happens to those companies when they have no more workers and no more customers who can afford to buy their products?
The Muslim immigrants on the whole are economically unproductive and are net consumers of tax money. They are also unlikely to have any interest in paying taxes to support elderly infidels when they become the voting majority.
Childless couples are likely to have a horrible old age.
We’re about 50-100 years away from a new Dark Age.
The only thing that will save them:
1) Every child results in a 10% exemption from taxes, up to a maximum of 8. Yes, that means that people with 8 children will pay almost no taxes. It also means that moms will be able to afford staying home to raise the kids.
2) Eliminate the welfare state. If you are not making enough income to support children, we don't want you having any. Welfare moms generally just make another generation of welfare dependents. We want middle-class moms having children.
Gee, folks are beginning to see the truth.
Abortion (and even birth control) are National Security issues.
The Pill is a symptom, not the cause. Eliminate the dis-incentives for having kids, instead. See my prior posts.
You are describing an expansion of our current welfare state. The kind of woman most interested in a $20K paycheck for having a kid is the kind we most DON'T want having kids. We want the SMART middle-class women to have kids as their career choice instead of being a lawyer, rather than the unintelligent lower-class women who have no other career options.
This is why I favor a big percentage tax credit, which will create the most incentive for upper-income women to become career mommies, with most of their husband's income shielded from taxes.
What created the two-income couple was the high tax rates.
I am guessing that my earlier attempt to post this did not success, so I’m trying again.
Re your post 45, it may not be the best reason by your lights but all is perception based upon experience. Neither of us have knowledge of the others’ experiences and thus cannot see what that person has gone through. By age 18 I had gone through a very unpleasant emotional life what with my parents’ breaking up, living with my unpleasant grandparents, and then living in a household with a step-father and three new half-siblings and living on the periphery of the family.
It was at that point that I decided that I would never subject anyone to the possibility of living such a life and forever more decided that there would be no children for me. I never changed my mind and was so lucky as to find a woman who, for different reasons, was willing to forego children.
Things worked out thereafter, I had a good professional life, and now am in a comfortable retirement. The earlier experiences have never left me and I have no regrets about not having children.
Yeah, I guess, according to how you see it, I gave in. I see it as having guided my life according to what I saw earlier in life and which was reinforced by the experiences I saw in my siblings’ and others’ home lifes.
I guess we have different experiences and would never agree on this matter, especially on trying to do it better next time, that would be hope over experience and besides, from 18 on I never wanted to, anyway.
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