Rome: Pope Francis joined Italy’s conservative prime minister in encouraging Italians to have more children, denouncing the financial precariousness facing young couples and “selfish, egotistical” choices that have led to a record low birth rate that is threatening the country’s economic future.
Francis urged concrete political action to invert the “demographic winter,” which in population terms resulted in the disappearance of a city the size of the Italian city of Bari last year. Blasting couples who have pets instead of children, Francis called for resources to be dedicated to helping couples grow their families, saying it was necessary to “plant the future” with hope.
Pope Francis greets Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni at the end of a conference to discuss the “demographic winter” and “empty cribs” problem Italy is facing. Credit: AP
“Let us not resign ourselves to sterile dullness and pessimism,” Francis told an annual gathering of pro-family organisations. “Let us not believe that history is already marked, that nothing can be done to reverse the trend.”
Italy recorded a record low number of live births last year, 392,598, which combined with an elevated number of deaths, 713,499, has accelerated the demographic trend that threatens to crash the country’s social security system.
The government of Premier Giorgia Meloni is backing a campaign to encourage at least 500,000 births annually by 2033, a rate that demographers say is necessary to prevent the economy from collapsing by growing the wage-earning population as retirees draw on their pensions.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni kisses the hand of Pope Francis.Credit: AP
Meloni came to power last year on a pro-family campaign of “God, family, fatherland” and her government has proposed a host of measures to try to encourage families to have more children, including tax cuts to increase spending power, given Italy’s fertility rate of 1.24 children per woman is among the lowest in the world.
Numerous studies have pointed to a combination of factors that discourage women from having children, including a lack of affordable child care spots, low salaries and precarious work contracts, and a tradition of women often bearing the burden of caring for older parents.
Meloni, who has a daughter with her partner, told the family association congress that it was time to reverse the trend.
