Savage capitalism is stopping Italians from having kids, says Pope

Starting a family in Italy is a “titanic effort” that only the wealthy can afford, Pope Francis said on Friday, warning that the “salty” conditions of the free market are preventing young people from having children.

Births in Italy fell below 400,000 in 2022, registering the 14th consecutive annual fall, with the overall population falling by 179,000 to 58.85 million. Italy’s fertility rate of 1.24 children per woman is among the lowest in the world.

Speaking at a conference on the growing demographic crisis, Pope Francis said the declining birth rate showed a lack of hope for the future, with the younger generation burdened by uncertainty, fragility and precariousness.

“The difficulty of finding a stable job, the difficulty of maintaining expensive housing, expensive housing, high rents and insufficient wages are real problems,” he said on Friday, sitting next to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

“The free market, without the necessary corrective measures, goes wild and leads to conditions and inequalities that are getting worse,” he said.

Francis acknowledged that there are “almost insurmountable obstacles” for young women forced to choose between career and motherhood. Because of the high cost of raising children, people are changing their priorities, he added.

Italy recorded a record low of live births last year, 392,598, which combined with the number of deaths, 713,499, has accelerated the demographic trend that threatens to crash the country’s social security system.

For context, Canada registers 367,684 live births in 2021, but Italy has about 20 million people overall and for the past decade has had fewer immigrants per year than Canada. Italy ranks ahead of South Korea in birth rates according to 2020 data from the 38 countries that make up the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), while Canada ranks lowest.

A shrinking population is a major concern for the eurozone’s third-largest country, with the economy minister warning this week that Italy’s GDP risks falling by 18 percentage points over the next two decades if current birth trends continue.

The education minister said on Thursday that current demographics show that Italy’s school population will shrink by one million in the next 10 years.

The difference is about immigration

Meloni campaigned on the platform of “God, family and homeland”. His government is campaigning to encourage at least 500,000 births a year by 2033, a level that demographers say is necessary to prevent the economy from collapsing as the salaried population grows as retirees draw on their pensions.

Meloni, who has a daughter with her partner, told the family association congress that it was time to reverse the trend. But he said it should be done without using surrogacy, referring to the wider political debate surrounding the demographic debate in Italy as well as the government’s support for migrants and the refusal to register children of same-sex couples.

“We want a nation where it is no longer scandalous to say – whatever is the legitimate, free choice, the passion of each person – we are all born male or female,” Meloni said to applause. “Where it is not taboo to say that mothers are not for sale, wombs are not for rent and children are not over-the-counter products that you can pick off the shelf like you are in a supermarket and maybe return if then. with what you want.”

Italy’s pope and prime minister have less common ground when it comes to immigration.

“Immigrants must be welcomed, accompanied, promoted and integrated,” Francis said on the Day of Migrants and Refugees in the Catholic Church last year, in September.

Meloni and his alliance vowed to continue their crackdown on migrants arriving in Italy through Libya-based smugglers.

Meanwhile, a member of the Brothers of Italy party was criticized by the opposition Democratic Party last month for comments “like Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime.”

“Italy has fewer children, so we are replacing them with others,” Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Francesco Lollobrigida told parliament. “Yes to help birth, not to change ethnicity.”

Selfish too, Francis said

For his part, Francis on Friday also highlighted what he considered to be “selfish, selfish” individual choices.

“We cannot passively accept that many young people are struggling to realize their family dreams and are forced to lower the line of desire, settling for mediocre substitutes: making money, aiming for a career, traveling, jealously guarding their free time,” he said.

The Pope said pets were replacing children in some households and told how a woman in a recent audience had opened her bag and asked for the papal blessing for “her baby,” only to reveal that it was a dog.

“I have lost patience and upbraided he said many children are hungry and you bring me a dog,” he said.