Wow, a huge drop in the last 15 years. I find it interesting what governments are trying to do to encourage higher birth rates (I think South Korea and Japan try to promote more as wel). I understand it’s good for economics but the environmentalist in me is relieved at the thought of fewer people on the planet.
Nothing. They’ll do nothing. They will keep protecting their billionaire owners while young people struggle to make ends meet. Then they’ll wonder why no one is having kids
A rapidly declining birth rate is bad for old people. Who pays taxes when they retire? Who works to wipe their butts when they can’t any more?
I know. I said I understand the economics.
Was I implying you didn’t?
It seems like jeffw was not sure ConfusedMeAgain understood the social implications of the economics and ConfusedMeAgain felt a bit undermined by that, because they mentioned the economics in the first comment already. You probably just agree with each other.
I certainly thought we did
That’s great! I’m not really used to people agreeing with each other online, it’s kind of shocking :)
Robots perhaps.
Plan 75
The State proposes to cover up to 3,000 euros a year in social-security contributions for working mothers with two children, with the youngest being under 10, and those with three children or more, with the youngest up to 18
Hilarious that they think that’s enough.
Soon the boomer cry will go from “nobody wants to work” to “nobody wants to have kids”
I guess this is going to be like when flights get oversold. They will start offering $. But then as the flight nears take off they offer $$$ then a few minutes before $$$$$$ +free flight + dinner + hotel +…
It may be too late by then. Declining population problems are not lineal but geometric in growth (or decline) so increasing incentives later on, even if effective may be too late to stop the decline. This is a much more serious issue than most people believe. And it is also quite time sensitive.
I suppose perperual growth is not good either, so what is actually the ideal? To stabilize the population numbers? And at what point?
It’s great for the planet.
Yet the Italian government still isn’t offering any realistic solutions. They keep attacking the LGBTQ community because apparently they’re the cause for a lack of new births. What they don’t do is attack their rich billionaire owners that keep young people poor, and are in turn actually the cause for such low birth rates. Go figure why young people won’t have kids. No one can afford it.
Interesting that the same record happened in neighbouring greece. Interesting to see if there are regional dynamics in this? Humans are influenced by their physical surrounding
We just have very low paychecks and you can’t really afford to have children unless you accept to have a shitty life. I didn’t for example. Freedom and money? Sign me up for that shit
It’s a common justification given, but it’s not true. The same happened in almost every advanced european society in the 80s, when things weren’t unaffordable. Urbanization is probably the largest contributor to this, because children are absolutely optional in city dwellers.
We should stop pretending we can reverse this trend, and the whole doom-saying around it. Instead southern europe needs to plan for the medium-term future, which necessarily include the transformation/abolition of the unsustainable welfare state paradigm built in the 80s.
Nah, the only unsubstainable welfare in a liberal democracy is welfare for the donor class.
Oh I completely agree and am happy population is reducing. But Italy’s cities are not getting bigger and most people live in suburban/agricultural areas. We are a very fragmented country made by thousands of small towns with a few thousands inhabitants and that didn’t change. There is no help for families with children and house/rent prices are high, it’s just hard.
Surprise, humans are also influenced by whether they can afford a house and kids on a single income.
Housing definitely plays a role. Or to be more precise, the culture of housing in your neighborhood.
If we all moved near the romani shantytowns, our birth rate would skyrocket 10x
