During the days that the Meloni government organized the Stati Generali della Natalita in Rome, Save the Children published its annual report on motherhood. “Le Equilibriste – Motherhood in Italy 2023” analyzes a far from positive situation when only 63% of women with minor children have a job. “We know that where women work more, more children are born, which is associated with higher fertility and stable work of both partners. women, and especially mothers, in our country are still widely characterized by instability and insecurity, to which must be added a structural lack of services for children, starting with a network of nurseries in the area, and a lack of policies to promote equity in the burden of caring for the family.”

The issue is clear, and it is certainly not about acting on the will of women, access to safe abortion, or buffer funding. Couples don’t have children because starting a family is an obstacle course. In 2022, the employment gap between men and women was 17.5%, but that changes when you have underage children. In the age group of 25-54 years, if there is a minor child, the level of employment of mothers stops at 63% versus 90.4% for fathers. With two minor children, women’s employment even drops to 56.1%. working fathers (90.8%), while the gap reaches 34 percentage points. Thus, parental leave ends after 10 days, and caregiving continues to fall on the shoulders of mothers. Women still have to choose between family and career and so 2022 became a historical minimum of births in Italy: 392,598 registrations in registry offices.

Photo by Jenna Duxbury on Unsplash

“The measures taken in recent years, while moving in the right direction, are only timid steps in terms of supporting parents,” emphasizes Antonella Inverno. services for young children and is equally necessary move more decisively towards equal parental leave compared to maternity leave. Italy is a country threatened by the future, and if it is true that the fall in the birth rate cannot be quickly reversed, then it is even more true that it is more important than ever to reverse the trend of pro-parenting policies so as not to waste precious time.” . It will be difficult to change anything without focusing on equality and rights.