Giada, a 30-year-old author, lives in central Italy together with her boyfriend, a store assistant additionally in his thirties.
After a number of unpaid internships, she lastly secured a extra dependable place this 12 months.
As a author specialising in science, she earns about 800 euros ($876) a month on a one-year part-time contract.
“They said they are going to renew it, but it’s a small company and everything is very unstable,” Giada advised Al Jazeera.
For that reason, she is suspending motherhood.
“Having kids has never been a question for me, and my boyfriend and I discuss it as he would also like to have them. But then we think about our precarious situation and realise that becoming parents now would not be sustainable. We barely make ends meet – imagine with a child.”
Working in Italy as a girl is fraught with challenges.
The nation is house to the bottom feminine employment price within the European Union and a steep gender pay hole. Girls are additionally typically extra more likely to be employed in “non-standard” preparations, equivalent to part-time and momentary jobs. And it’s moms and younger girls who’re probably the most affected.
“We are lucky in other ways,” Giada mentioned. “Our households help us so we all know that if we want assist we are able to ask them.
“[But] what if I get pregnant and my company decides to not renew my contract? It is not so unrealistic that this could happen.”
Chiara, a 26-year-old social media strategist residing in Padua together with her boyfriend, mentioned given their salaries, they can’t plan for a household but.
“I left my parents’ home when I was 19 and almost immediately became financially independent by working while studying,” she mentioned.
“All my wages have always been used for daily living, not allowing me to save any money.”
Chiara is engaged on an apprenticeship contract, incomes about 1,200 euros ($1,314) per 30 days.
Wanting forward, she doesn’t anticipate her wage to rise by a lot.
“Our desire to become parents is strong, but it is never stronger than knowing that a kid deserves to live comfortably,” she mentioned. “With groceries, hire and payments going up, whereas our wage stays the identical, it’s principally not possible to take action.
“Of course, this is not something that makes me happy: not knowing whether our financial situation will ever allow us to have children scares me, because this day may never come”.
Motherhood postponed
In accordance with a current Division of Well being report, Italian girls are, on common, older than 31 after they have their first baby.
About 62 p.c of infants in 2022 have been born to moms aged between 30 and 39. These aged between 20 and 29 accounted for 26 p.c of births, in contrast with 30 p.c in 2012.
The common variety of kids per girl is now 1.24, one of many lowest charges in Europe. To match, France’s price, which is taken into account excessive, was 1.8 in 2021 whereas Greece’s was 1.4, based on the World Financial institution.
The Division of Well being mentioned the tendencies are partly right down to a “decrease in the propensity to have children”.
Whereas girls are underneath much less societal strain to have kids, in Italy, the most important impediment to motherhood for some is with the ability to afford it.
Official figures present that 72 p.c of resignations in 2021 have been submitted by girls. Most of those that stop cited the difficulties related to juggling work and childcare duties.
“Care work is still all on women’s shoulders, even for couples where both have jobs,” Chiara Daniela Pronzato, professor of demography on the College of Turin, advised Al Jazeera.
Whereas girls get 5 months’ maternity go away, fathers are entitled to only 10 days.
Good high quality and reasonably priced childcare is briefly provide. There should not sufficient state-run nursery locations and personal preschools are very costly. Plans to make use of 4.6 billion euros of the EU’s COVID-19 restoration funds to construct new nurseries are lagging.
“The most expensive aspect of parenthood is children’s time. Caring for them costs money,” Pronzato mentioned. “When a girl has youngsters and a low wage, it’s seemingly she would resign to handle the household, setting her up in a state of poverty that actually doesn’t assist the nation to develop.
“Increasing the fertility rate is not important because ‘we are shrinking as a population’, but rather to maintain economic prosperity,” Pronzato defined.
“If women worked more, they could have more children, as shown by France, Sweden and Norway, where fertility and female employment rates are both high.”
Presenting the federal government’s 2024 price range, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has made clear her need to extend the delivery price, introduced measures for households with kids, together with free nursery take care of a second baby, the momentary exemption of ladies with two or extra kids from social safety contributions, and advantages for corporations that rent moms on everlasting contracts.
“A woman who gives birth to at least two children … has already made an important contribution to society,” Meloni mentioned in October.
However Pronzato warned that whereas incentives could possibly be useful, “there should be more focus on services instead of money, as it is hard for people to trust that these bonuses will remain for a long time”.
“Building new kindergartens and offering full-time education and after-school activities in schools would rather be a more forward-looking step,” she defined.
“We should begin to consider children as precious and important to everyone, because the future depends on them, and it should be the community, the public – not the individual household – that take care of them.”
