Last week the annual report on the state of implementation of the law for the social protection of maternity and on the voluntary termination of pregnancy was sent to Parliament. If on the one hand the decrease in voluntary termination of pregnancy continues, on the other it emerges that for the first time in Italy the number of "emergency contraceptives" has exceeded the number of births. And furthermore, from the data of the regions there is a health facility in which the number of IVG points (voluntary termination of pregnancy) exceeds that of birth points even in Regions that until recently were oriented towards supporting birth rates and families. The report follows the alarm raised at the end of 2018 by ISTAT: the historic low in births - never so low since the unification of Italy - has been exceeded once again. In the 2017 newborns were 15 thousand fewer than the previous year, and for the third consecutive year under half a million.
The scenario described by the Institute of Statistics is disturbing. I'm almost 120.000 (practically the population of a medium-sized municipality) fewer births than at the beginning of the economic crisis. The phase of decline in the birth rate triggered by the economic crisis that began in 2008 it therefore seems to have taken on structural characteristics. The reduction in births is a phenomenon that affects all industrialized countries.Italy, but, he can do worse than anyone. Even compared to Greece, Portugal, Ukraine; to countries that have had very difficult economic conditions. The birth rate and the condition of families is increasingly becoming one of the central problems, both from a social and economic point of view that Italy is called to resolve. And for this reason, integrated policies to support families and young couples are increasingly urgent, especially at a time when the meaning of the family itself is being called into question.. And the institutions, both central and local authorities, are called to intervene. And a lot can and must be done.
In Parma since 2007 al 2011 it was a one-of-a-kind experience. The attention given to family policies had made Parma a best practice for all of Italy (and also for Europe). We immediately started some tariff interventions in favor of large families (with three or more children): from concessions for public transport and for attendance at childcare services, to the reduction of the variable portion of the Environmental Hygiene Tariff. We had also introduced the reimbursement of local income tax starting from families with at least two children. Subsequently, after an in-depth study carried out by a multidisciplinary scientific committee that I had established, we developed the family quotient (later known as Quotiente Parma): a correction coefficient of the ISEE – the first introduced in Italy – with the aim of remodulating municipal tariffs, and therefore access to Administration services (nests, nursery schools, services for the elderly…), in order to make them fairer for families. It won't have been perfect. But he gave greater weight to family burdens, with particular reference to the number of children, to the working status of the parents, in the presence of elderly people, of people with disabilities, of foster children, to the condition of single parenthood. Experimentation that had been shared by numerous Municipalities (more than 50, starting from Rome). A real cultural change of pace which would hopefully also represent an objective of national fiscal policies, as the Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini rightly hoped last summer. In addition to the family quotient, we then launched the "Famiglia è Futuro" project which included three tenders to support young couples who rent a house (Let's set up a house), parents who choose to personally look after their child in his first year in the family (First year with mom and dad) and families, stimulating mutual help projects between families living in the same neighborhood (The family together in the neighborhood).
We had activated the tagesmutter project which had also represented a job opportunity for young women, some family workshops in the neighborhoods and the Parma Family Card. The experimentation with the main industrial realities of the city of policies for the reconciliation of family-work-city time was also of great importance.. We had also also established, with the support of the Government, in particular thanks to the support of the then Undersecretary for Family Policies Carlo Giovanardi, a European network of family cities, aimed at enhancing innovative policies and the role of the city of Parma as a place of study and experimentation of the same. But more important than individual measures is the principle that recognizes the social role of the family in society. Alongside the Family Agency (strongly supported by family associations) important partners such as the Scientific Committee for Family-friendly Welfare also made their contribution, the National Forum of Family Associations, Solidarity Forum and precisely the Consultation of Family Associations (46 associations) in the awareness that family associations, considered an irreplaceable resource of the community, it is capable of those relationships of proximity that no Administration, not even the most virtuous is capable of giving birth and promoting. All this in the belief that the family is the primary cell of society, the first educational agency (as it presides over the transmission of values), the first welfare agency, and not only that: it is the nucleus on which the consumer economy is based and can therefore represent, if strengthened, the key to economic recovery.
*Former Mayor of Parma