Italy’s welfare unsustainable on current demographic trends

Italy will no longer be able to afford its welfare system unless it halts its demographic decline, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned on Tuesday.

Last week, national statistics agency ISTAT predicted that more than a third of Italy’s population will be over 65 by 2050, up from about a quarter last year.

“Our welfare system cannot hold up if we have a population that keeps getting older … and fewer and fewer people who work to support them,” Meloni told a conference in Turin.

The prime minister said her government was working to provide more support for families who want to have children in next year’s budget law, due to be unveiled this month.

“It is simple. It is a (welfare) system that we cannot afford, whatever reform we do, if we do not invest (in increasing) the birth rate,” Meloni said.

Births in Italy have fallen steadily since 2009, and last year dropped to a new historic low of under 400,000. ISTAT expects the negative trend to continue in the coming years.

Meloni, who faces a surge in boat arrivals from North Africa, has said that immigration cannot be a solution to the demographic crisis affecting Italy and the rest of Europe.

(Reuters)