The change that is needed in the role of women to encourage births

Have we ever thought of a newborn baby alone in the cradle of a hospital nursery? To a ghost maternity ward, where cries are a distant memory? To a child who can’t find other friends at the park to play with? To completely empty classrooms in which bewildered teachers wander around looking for a childish noise that is no longer there? It is the story of Adam, the last Italian child who will be born in 2050, according to a provocative but not so much prediction by Plasmonwho had the idea of ​​posing the problem of falling birth rates in Italy with a shocking short film: the viewer is projected thirty years from now in a country where the choice of having a child can be so complicated as to become unique.

Adam is alone. And this is because the new generations will stop procreating gripped by fear of the future. An apocalyptic prediction, certainly, but which is confirmed by the survey conducted by the University of Padua with Community Research, which, between pessimism and uncertainty, shows 95 percent of young people to be scarcely confident about the prospects. But how did we get to this point? “In our country the demographic issue has long been underestimated unlike other European states – he explains to Sheet Alexander Rosina, scholar of demographic phenomena (Catholic University) – The persistent fall in the birth rate has meant that there are fewer children than grandparents and, therefore, we have slipped into an irreversible demographic trap. After all, if there are no effective policies towards families, if there are no structural measures for maternity and paternity, if there are no services for children and nursery schools, the fate that risks being fulfilled in Italy is that of Adam”. .

In 2021, newborns fell to 400,249, down by 25 percent compared to 2011. But there is one figure that should make us think even more, says Rosina, and that is that between now and 2050 the elderly population will go from 14 to 19 million. “Five million more people over 60 will absorb more public resources – in terms of pensions, assistance and care – that Italy, an indebted country that is growing slowly, cannot afford to spend unless it increases its ability to develop wealth through greater participation of women in work”. Seen like this, the question of the low birth rate assumes a more economic than ethical meaning. Which is also a good thing because it facilitates the discussion on work-family conciliation, which passes through public policies but also more flexible corporate policies. It is not so? “Companies have struggled to structure themselves in favor of new parents – says Rosina – We needed initiatives capable of intervening on working conditions, working hours and parental leave. And instead we have not been able to move from the idea of ​​a child understood as an economic cost and organizational complication for the parents to a collective value in which the whole of society has the advantage of investing, including the state and companies”.

Moral of the story? “Italy can no longer afford to be a conservative country in the roles of men and women because, if it does not want to become extinct, it needs to free up female potential”. Seen in this way, the question of equal roles is no longer an ideological battle but a need for progress for the good of the country. Finally.