I have always had a major fascination with Italy and the Italian culture ever since I first went there at the age of nine. Although I loved visiting the country and experiencing the culture, I noticed that there was not much youth throughout the country. In later years, I talked with my aunt, who has lived their for a few years now, and we discussed how there was very low numbers of children throughout Italy. I decided to choose this topic as I found it fascinating as to why Italy faced this aging population, and what factors that might have on the economy. After looking into this, I found that the birthrate had been on decline for several years, hitting an all time low this year. Furthermore, I noticed that this low birthrate was causing major issues to the economy and the stability of the country. I especially found this interesting as I come from an extremely large family. With having eight siblings and ten nieces and nephews, I have always been fascinated with children and the importance of their roles in society. After discovering this about Italy and it's population I knew I wanted to research more about it with this project.
Borrowed from "Food News"
Before researching this topic, I had hypothesized that the low numbers of youth would help the country run more smoothly as it allows more people to work. After looking into it, I realized that families are extremely important to help stabilize the economy as they produce activity and will be future generations of workers. As I began to look for articles pertaining to my topic I struggled to find articles showing how this birthrate hurt the economy. At first, I only found one article that had supported my hypothesis in the beginning, and I started to panic that finding more articles would be nearly impossible. However, after my first few days of research I started to look into smaller topics within my major topic and I managed to find several articles with small pieces of information for my topic, along with new information that spawned more interest to my topic. For example, I found out that the Italian government has noticed this birthrate problem and they created 'fertility day' to help entice more couples to have children. Although the campaigns were not popular with the people, it made me realize that there was hope for this issue after all.
Italy has always had a special place in my heart and after researching the low birthrate and how that is impacting the economy, it made me want to look for possible solutions as I plan to visit again in the future. I looked into the workforce and the benefits they provide for families and noticed that they hardly provide the care and compensation for working mothers that they do in surrounding countries. I found that making it easier to work and support a family could increase the low birthrate, as more and more women enter the workforce every year. As someone who loves Italian culture and the country, this topic was extremely fascinating and I hope future generations of Italians will research this underlying problem and strive to raise the birthrate and help the economy.
Header borrowed from "Rough Guides" https://www.roughguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/3-Lake-Garda-C40K97-1581x1050.jpg