The collapse in the birth rate now seems to be heading towards an irrepressible decline. Istat data speak clearly and show an average of 1.2 children per woman. The decrease in births compared to 2022 is 3.6%. This is what emerges from the demographic indicators relating to the year 2023 and published by Istat. According to provisional data, the births resident in Italy are 379 thousand, with a birth rate of 6.4 per thousand (it was 6.7 per thousand in 2022). The decrease in births compared to 2022 is 14 thousand units (-3.6%). Since 2008, the last year in which there was an increase in births in Italy, the decline has been 197 thousand units (-34.2%). The average number of children per woman thus drops from 1.24 in 2022 to 1.20 in 2023, coming very close to the historic minimum of 1.19 children recorded way back in 1995.
“The situation is not serious. It is very serious”, says Rocco Rago, director of the Reproductive Physiopathology Operational Unit of the Sandro Pertini hospital in Rome and director of the Maternal-Child Department of the ASL Roma 2, on the occasion of the XVIII edition of the Andrology and reproductive medicine days, the largest reproductive medicine congress held every year in Sabaudia. “First of all – observes Rago – it must be said that the average age of women who seek an assisted procreation technique has reached almost 37 years and over 42 if they carry out a heterologist. The average number of children per woman it is today at 1.2 and represents the lowest figure since the post-war period. Even if it is still an estimate, that of 2024 takes us between 350 and 360 thousand births, therefore towards an already highly negative figure compared to 2021 which was 399 thousand new births. Let’s keep in mind that in 1964 there were 1 million and 350 thousand births in Italy.
The data are alarming and tell us that the postponement of births is a phenomenon with a significant impact on the general reduction in fertility, since the more decisions about motherhood are delayed, the more the time available for potential mothers is reduced. “The chronological age at which a pregnancy is sought has moved forward by 10 years – continues the expert – and to this are added the oncological pathologies, lifestyles and even cultural habits that have changed in the desire for a pregnancy “. All these factors mean that the difficulty of conceiving and infertility in couples are increasingly at the center of the current debate.
Since many people do not know the causes of infertility, raising public awareness is a crucial challenge. Stereotypes and misconceptions, particularly among younger generations, risk affecting a child’s plans. Even the very conception of science as an always and in any case effective solution can lead to underestimating elements such as the decline in fertility linked to advancing age.
To try to reverse this negative trend, explains the specialist, “we must start by spreading a culture of reproductive physiology, explaining to the younger generations that women have a biological clock that has an expiry date. In fact, not everyone knows that over 35 years begins a decline in fertility and that if you want to have a child you have to start thinking about it before that age. It won’t be something we will do in a year, but in the following decades, slowly starting to change what we can from a young age be the culture of fertility. You have to be aware that you make choices in life: if you decide to have a life centered on the individual, that’s fine, but if this doesn’t match your desire for a pregnancy, then it’s something you have to do. be informed”.
“Another activity in which it would be necessary to invest – he adds – are the infrastructures that should be put in place to support women who want to work even if they have one or more children. Today we no longer have that extended family that we once had and which allowed women to return to work leaving their children looked after by grandparents and relatives. Today there is a need to have accessible services, both from an economic point of view and from the point of view of the presence of these services”.
#Natality #Rago #Pertini #declining #birth #rates #culture #reproduction #physiology