Italy's low birth rate

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Italy’s population has decreased by approximately one million residents in the space of one year and forecasts predict that this is likely to worsen.

Hannah Mullane speaks to a mother in Rome about what it’s like to start a family in Italy and a business that’s implementing its own policies to support staff who choose to have children.

We take a look at what the government is planning to do to encourage more people to have children and head to the north of Italy to the Bolzano region, the only part of the country where births are increasing to see what they’re doing differently.

Presenter/producer: Hannah Mullane Image: Melissa and Cosmo; Credit: Melissa Panarello

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	abnormal transactions. Some kind of cyber attack on a bank.
0:05.1	Tens of millions of dollars. Something I don't think anybody has seen before.
0:09.1	It's a cybercriminal group.
0:10.7	From the BBC World Service.
0:12.5	The Lazarus Heist is back for season two.
0:14.7	It was really like in the movies.
0:16.2	Find out more at the end of this podcast.
0:19.7	Hello and welcome to Business Daily with me Hannah Malayne.
0:23.8	Today we're heading to Italy, a country known for placing a lot of importance on family life.
0:31.4	While those families are shrinking, as less Italians are having children, leaving the country
0:36.7	grappling with one of the lowest birth rates in Europe.
0:40.0	We have problems in findings, working age population. And also the number of those who are potential parents are shrinking as well.
0:50.7	This is a sort of vicious circle. This vicious circle isn't new. Since the 60s, the annual
0:56.6	number of births in Italy has fallen by more than half and its impact on the economy is growing,
1:02.1	leaving businesses struggling to find enough workers and taking matters into their own hands.
1:06.7	We don't have faith in the Italian state and so we decide ourselves to do something in our company,
1:15.3	and we decide to give to our workers in Italy a very clear message.
1:24.4	Motherhood is the most important things in our society.
1:28.9	We have to take care of mothers.
1:31.7	We'll take a look at why so many Italians are not having children
1:34.8	and what the government's planning to do to change that.
1:38.2	We'll also head to the north of the country,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.