What does Farmindustria, the association of drug manufacturers, have to do with our country’s low birth rate? It has something to do with it because somehow it seems that the pharmaceutical industry has found a possible solution and the numbers rattled off at the Roman meeting on “Birth: a question of couples” certainly go against the trend with respect to an Italian situation defined by “glaciation” of new borns.
So many women at the top of their game in the pharmaceutical industry
And let’s look at these numbers: the national average of new born in pharmaceutical companies is 45% higher than the national average, and the percentage of women in pharmaceutical companies is very high: 53% in the research field, 45% of managers and 46% of managers. But having many women does not always translate into having many children and the difference is made by the welfare system offered: all employees are covered by supplementary healthcare, over 90% of companies have been applying smart working, part-time, flexibility in coming and going hours, paid time off for medical visits in addition to the national contract, 58% of companies offer nurseries and reimbursement of expenses for education and babysitting, 47% leave and maternity leave longer than the national contract.
The MSD case
Then, there are those who go further, like Msd. “With us – he says Nicoletta Luppi, president and managing director of MSD Italia – there is no difference in salary between men and women, and we have built corporate welfare by asking our employees what they would need. Result: among other things, we have eliminated clocking in, introduced time flexibility, provided ergonomic chairs and desks for working from home, but also parental leave for the father, scholarships for children and school books, free canteen, dry cleaners and psychological support. And information days for our employees on fertility.”
Good sexuality? It is built by children 11 March 2024 Children are made where there are the conditions to make them. “You don’t have a child for the 300 euro bonus because you give the fathers 6 months of leave – the psychiatrist pressed Paolo Crepet – but if there are nurseries and nursery schools for everyone, full-time primary schools, yellow minibuses that take children to school and bring them back at 6.30pm, as they do in Holland and Denmark. Why don’t we who also have a higher GDP do it too? Obviously there isn’t a cause-effect relationship, but you know that if you have a child the system helps you. There is no welfare for parents.”
The age of the children is increasingly advanced
If this is one of the two aspects of the problem, the other – inextricably linked to the first, however – is also the later age at which one thinks of having a child. Often ignoring that fertility doesn’t last forever. Women ignore it, who think they have a lot of time ahead of them, and men also ignore it, whose fertility has been in free fall for a decade. And there is a problem of communicating these aspects. Where should one start? We have been writing this for at least a decade: school is the right place and Italy is one of the very few European countries to keep fertility, disease prevention, knowledge of one’s body, sexuality and affection in relationships strictly outside of school.
The proposal: fertility screening for males and females
“Within the ministerial table on lifestyles and fertility – he proposes Maria Rosaria Campitiello, gynecologist and head of the technical secretariat of the Minister of Health – we would like to propose to girls at 20, 25 and 30 years of age a fertility screening with basal ultrasound and the dosage of anti-Müllerian hormone, which allows us to estimate the ovarian reserve and therefore the reproductive possibilities . For males a spermiogram, already paid for by the NHS”.
Male fertility in free fall
Yes, the males. They think they are never responsible for conception difficulties. They think they are fertile until an advanced age – precise Pier Francesco Bassiprofessor of Urology at the Catholic University – and they do not know that diabetes, obesity, smoking, alcohol, drugs, infections, pollution and some pathologies are hitting fertility hard: the estimate is that in 2070 males will be 50% less fertile than to 2000″. In just 70 years…