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Soc 170
March 17, 2023
Writing Assignment #1 - News Engagement Response
“The Double Whammy Making Italy the West’s Fastest-Shrinking Nation” from The New
York Times (2023), explores the action being taken to tackle the country’s decreasing population.
The article first attributes this problem to the simultaneous plummeting birth rate and booming
elderly population. Then, it turns to explaining the difference between the policies and programs
promoting fertility placed in the 1950s and the failed ones today. Unless the Italian government
starts combatting this issue as soon as possible, the elderly population will continue to boom,
with a diminishing working class to support them.
As mentioned, Italy is facing two problems: a growing elderly population and decreasing
birth rates. A growing elderly population can be the result of the longevity effect, a phenomenon
attributing longer lives to medical advances. This increases both Italy’s median mortality age and
its old-age dependency ratio. Much like adjusting for economic inflation, Italy can expand their
retirement age, to balance that ratio (Scott 2018). By allowing more people into the workforce,
Italy can grow its economy more efficiently. However, a larger working population requires an
increase in employment opportunities that need the government funding Italy lacks. Instead, the
Italian prime minister, Georgia Meloni, has approved a “Pact for the Third Age'' which “seeks to
keep aging Italians in their own homes and out of institutions” (Horowitz 2023). This can focus
the money usually spent on nursing homes to programs promoting female employment and
fertility.
In response to the declining birth rates, Italy has implemented many family policies
which were rejected by the public as being rooted in facism (Horowitz 2023). Although these
pronatalist campaigns were effective in the past, the Italian government needs a different
