Financial TimesFinancial Times

Baby bust: Italy faces a ‘demographic winter’

By Amy Kazmin

08 Jun 2023 · 10 min read

Editor's Note

Alarmed by the falling birth rate, the Italian government is trying to entice women into having children. But many are sceptical of the approach. The FT looks at the reasons why.

Italy’s prestigious University of Padova made its name in the Middle Ages, when its medical scholars pioneered the dissection of human bodies to study anatomy.

These days, Dr Maria Teresa Gervasi, director of the medical school’s obstetrics unit, is dissecting the demographic crisis afflicting her university town.

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