(Finance) – In addition to being an extraordinary experience, growing up a son changes his approach to life and community. But there is another aspect that is anything but secondary: it can also be very expensive if not properly supportedor. Because of this, the financial impact of the costs related tocare and raising of children it is one of the most significant reasons why some adults choose to delay or even give up have children.
The birth rate decline, however, risks having a particularly dramatic impact on our country be onthe economic sideor whether on the social one. According to Istat, in the last 9 years 1,561,000 inhabitants have been lost (equal to all residents in a region like Sardinia). There were 60 million 346 thousand residents on 1 January 2014 while there were 58 million 781 thousand on 31 July 2023.
As recently photographed from Istat in the report on “Birth rate and fertility of the resident population”, in 2022 births fell to 393 thousand, recording a reduction of 1.7% on the previous year. This decline has continued uninterrupted for 15 years. Compared to 2008, today there are over 183 thousand fewer births (-31.8%). The situation also appears particularly critical in 2023: according to the first provisional data in January-June, births are around 3,500 fewer than in the same period of 2022, with a fertility rate of 1.22 children per woman.
Numbers that give the figure of the centrality of the topic. Because of this, importance of investments to support the family and priority measures in view of the Budget Law to encourage the birth rate and combat the phenomenon of the so-called demographic winter, the main themes at the center of the conference were: “From the cost of a child to the social and economic value of the birth rate”, organized by the Forum of Family Associations at the Chamber of Deputies.
Istat data reworked by the University of Verona based on the Consumption of Italian Families indicate that the cost of maintaining a child, which refers to expenses for necessary goods such as food, housing and clothingfor you, aged between 0 and 5 years is approximately 530 euros per month, equal to approximately half the cost of living of an adult. For a child aged between 6 and 18, the cost is around 390 euros, equal to 40% of the cost of an adult.
The cost of simple maintenance of a child represents a conservative estimate compared to the so-called cost of raising a child which, instead, incorporates expenses for goods that are not strictly necessary and for the care of children and home, such as education, sport, cultural and recreational activities, holidays, child carei, etc. In the case of couples with children in which both parents work, care services must necessarily be acquired on the market at very high costs. The cost of growth has been estimated at an average cost of 1,100 euros per month which increases to 1,600 euros when the “unpaid work” used in caring for children and the home is also taken into account. If the costs of children are cumulated over time until they reach adulthood, we obtain an average cost of approximately 125,000 euros when the maintenance cost alone is considered, and approximately 258,000 euros, however, if the growth cost is considered net of the value of the time spent in domestic production activities, i.e. the work used to care for children and the house. Self if we also included the value of time spent caring for children and the home, we would arrive at values much higher than 300,000 euros on average.
To try to stop the phenomenon of the ‘demographic winter’, that is affecting our country, the policies to support it take on central importance birth rate. In this perspective, measures such as the Single Allowance, the increase in services for early childhood, the policies for female and youth work and for the conciliation between life and work, the resources to finance the strengthening of territorial services for early childhood and caregiving, as well as support for the costs of caring for and raising children.
“The government intends to put the birth rate and equal opportunities back at the centre. In this sense, we have increased the Single Allowance for large families, although it is a measure under infringement proceedings by the EU. The choice we made in this Maneuver was to invest in parenting, motherhood and family. Measures such as tax relief for women starting from the second child and free nursery school for families after their first child go in this direction. The objective is to return to giving social value to motherhood”, he underlines Eugenia Roccella, Minister for Family, Birth and Equal Opportunities.
“We need to focus on the problem of the declining birth rate which will weigh on the future of Italian society. The family has been left alone for too long, when instead children are an investment for the entire community. Despite the current economic situation, the family has obtained more resources than expected. In this choice I saw a healthy reversal of trend. It takes a lot of attention from everyone,” he declares Michela Vittoria Brambilla, President of the Parliamentary Commission for Children and Adolescents.
For Giorgio Mulè, Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies: “We must continue the path already started with this Maneuver and partly with that of last year by reducing the impact of the cost of living on families. We need to reverse what the ISTAT data have certified, i.e. the phenomenon of the so-called demographic winter, and move away from the logic that a child is a cost. On the contrary, it is a path not only of love but also of social growth.”
Second Simona Malpezzi, Vice President of the Parliamentary Commission for Children and Adolescents: “We need to put in place measures and tools that can help our children enhance their abilities and talents. We need to help families to accompany their child’s growth, just think of the cost of textbooks text. The current fund is not sufficient and must be increased, while at the same time encouraging free public transport. It is therefore necessary to encourage mortgage subsidies and strengthen wages, to guarantee effective support for families”.
“Politics must insist on measures to support the family by taking into account the resources we have. If we don’t reverse the trend by investing in the birth rate, social security won’t hold up. I thank the Forum of Family Associations for the ideological recognition of the natural family. Policies must concentrate their efforts on combating the phenomenon of demographic winter,” he explained Andrea De Bertoldi, Finance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.
“It is necessary to move from the culture of the child as an individual cost borne by families, to the practice of the child as an asset and investment for society. Bringing a child into the world, educating him and helping him become a good citizen is an extraordinary human experience. This long and intense journey has high economic costs that deserve to be supported”, he observed Adriano Bordignon, President of the Family Associations Forum. “To restore dignity to the precious work of parents and try to revive the birth rate, a tax reform is necessary that takes into account the composition of the family unit and the costs of raising children, combined with a much more generous single allowance and services for early childhood more extensive. The measures in the Budget Law are positive in themselves but insufficient to reverse the demographic trend and give real relief to the parents’ task.”
“The birth rate is a delicate issue. We are moving forward in a complicated situation that represents a problem and will be so from many points of view. We need to intervene quickly with measures to support those who want to have children, in particular on the cost, compatibility with work, care and time, which in a society like ours becomes an important element”, he underlined Gian Carlo BlangiardoProfessor at the University of Milan-Bicocca, former President of Istat
For Federico Perali, Professor at the University of Verona: “The cost of raising a child can strongly influence birth choices, especially when compared with the earning capacity of a young family. It is important, therefore, to try to reduce the cost in the short term with more effective policies that better reconcile work and family time. At the same time, it is crucial to drastically reduce youth unemployment and to intervene in a systemic way on the competitiveness of the economy to give young people wages that are closer to the value of their real productivity”.