I believe it is... In Northern Italy, the Agony of Aging Not So Gracefully Massimo Cebrelli/Grazia Neri, for The International Herald Tribune This beach setting in Genoa, Italy, is typical for the area. Whether it is the beach or a downtown cafe, the people around are usually older. By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, International Herald Tribune Published: September 22, 2006 GENOA, Italy — There are hundreds of stores in the Fiumara Mall — Sephora, Elan, Lavazza Cafe. But in a nation long known for its hordes of children, there is not one toy store in the sprawling mix, and a shiny merry-go-round stands dormant. “This is a place for old people,” said Francesco Lotti, 24, strolling with his fiancée in Genoa’s medieval old town. “Just look around. You don’t see young people.” Even for people of his age, “there are not many places — no clubs, for example.” Playgrounds? He looked quizzically at his fiancée. They can count them on a few fingers. While all of Europe has suffered from declining birthrates, nowhere has the drop been as profound and prolonged as in this once gorgeous Mediterranean city, the capital of Italy’s graying Liguria region. Genoa provides a vision of Europe’s aging future, displaying the challenges that face a society with more old than young, and suggesting how hard it will be to reverse the downward population spiral. Children are no longer playing in the streets here, nor are there many family-friendly restaurants. Schools have closed for lack of students. Hospitals are overburdened with the elderly. Medical costs are straining the government. Furthermore, the fewer the children in a society, the fewer there are likely to be in the future. “This is a society that was based on family ties,” and now there are fewer families, said Daniela del Boca, a professor of economics at the University of Turin. “It’s easy to bemoan low birthrates, but it’s hard to have good ideas to solve the problem.” Most Genovese today have just one child or none, and are unapologetic about the choice. The birthrate, 7.7 births per 1,000 people, is about half the death rate, 13.7 per 1,000, in Liguria last year, a frightening ratio even by European standards. Government efforts to reverse the trend are not working. Cash payments for births, for example, have failed to inspire a leap in fertility rates, and immigration brings problems of its own. Here, as in much of Europe, immigrants are having more children than others, and their fertility has kept Genoa’s population, now at 750,000, from imploding. But many Genovese are beginning to feel that the city is no longer theirs: Fifty percent of the students in many schools in the old city are of foreign parentage, a situation that is producing resentment. “Yes, immigrants make up the difference, but in some ways it’s not fair,” said Silvia Baghino, whose two children were playing in an empty playground. “They get free services like nurseries, and we have to pay privately.” In the two countries in Europe with the highest birthrates, France and Britain, about 20 percent of babies have at least one foreign-born parent. The new government of Romano Prodi has created a Ministry of Family to address the population problem, but acknowledges that it will be an uphill battle. “Maybe we should have confronted this problem 30 years ago, but we didn’t, and so we know the policies that we put in to place have to be powerful,” said Rosi Bindi, the new minister. Low birthrates in Italy began almost three decades ago, around the time women’s liberation took off here. The figures are startling: A quarter of women in Italy now have no children, and another quarter stop at one, Ms. del Boca said. The problem is particularly severe here in Liguria, a region of fading elegance along Italy’s northwest coast. Twenty years ago, for every 100 people under age 15, Liguria had 70 over age 65. Today, for every 100 people under 15, it has 240 over 65, an index that is “the highest in the world,” according to Massimiliano Costa, the region’s vice governor. For the people of Genoa, a port city in an economically depressed country, children have become an economic liability. “Kids are not important,” said Nazarena Lanza, 27. “The priority has to be to have a steady job and make a living, to give yourself some security.” None of her friends has had a child, she said. Childlessness has become socially acceptable here, even the norm among well-educated women. Ilaira Magno, 37, who manages her own business, grew up with four siblings but is resolutely childless herself. “In my generation, I know very few people with kids,” she said. “There is no social pressure. “Even if I wanted one, which I don’t, I could not afford it,” she added, as she shopped with her boyfriend in the winding streets near Christopher Columbus’s house. Over time, the decision of young people to defer or forgo children has had a ripple effect, changing the texture of Italian society and its values. Courtyards from Rome to Naples, once filled with children, have fallen silent. Economists say communities in time will struggle to find enough younger workers for certain tasks, like police officers and ambulance workers. With plans for a technology park, Liguria’s government is hoping to attract a few hundred young people to the region and keep university graduates from leaving. But Italians have so far been unmoved by government incentives. “They say, ‘Make babies; it’s our future,’ but how can you really?” asked Marco Ranucci, who owns a tiny cafe, where he works 10 hours a day, noting that the government’s current $1,285, “baby bonus” per child does not even pay for a year of baby formula. About 10 percent of Liguria’s schools have been closed in the past decade and far more would have been shut if the children of immigrants, including tens of thousands from South America to Genoa, had not filled the empty desks, Mr. Costa said. But residents complain about a loss of their culture. “Some of the kids in school with my teenager don’t even speak Italian,” said Maria Termini, who lives in the old town. In the Fiumara Mall, the rare mother pushing a stroller is generally speaking a foreign language. “In Italy, they don’t have children,” said Flor Ribera, a 42-year-old house cleaner from Ecuador, who plans to enroll her two children in middle school next year. “They have dogs and cats.” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/world/europe/22genoa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
