Effects on GDP
So if serious public policies are not put in place, this is the prospect. But not only. There are very lucid economic considerations, with cold numbers (in the historic rooms of the Institute in Via Balbo they are the ones who tell the truth …) and really not very reassuring. We must start from a calculation, which is the basis of everything: GDP – simplifying an equation that in Istat is daily bread – is measured by relating productivity, employment, participation in the labor market, demographic structure and population.
Blangiardo puts down a simulation: if we assume that between 2020 and 2040 the population will drop by about four million, a projection not far-fetched given the figures we have every year, GDP would drop by 6.9%. If we then imagine that the population of working age also decreases – with general conditions unchanged in the other components, including productivity – then the decline in GDP reaches as much as -18.6%. “We can say that this generates a paradox: the increase in average life brings more and more future for each of us individually, but less and less for all of us together”.
In short, the data show that the trend generates a demographic “heavy tax” destined to last if the trend is not reversed. «A country-system must take into account that demographics are moving slowly, and this allows us to know the phenomena in time. We are not discovering this process now, and that is why we need to act ”. The issue was addressed, among other things, by the States General on the Birth Rate last May, where the Pope and Prime Minister Mario Draghi spoke, and where Blangiardo gave the opening speech.
There is a lack of a favorable environment for those with children
«We need to revitalize the production of human capital. For the birth rate, the causes of the decline are known: there are no adequate structures, there is no favorable environment for those who have children. This is also known, and it was also known in many European countries, such as Germany but also nations of the former East, which have implemented policies that have reversed the trend. The interventions must not be of a charitable nature, but of a demographic nature. And in this sense the single universal check goes in the right direction, and should not be downsized ».
The other important point is the structures: «One way is also the greater involvement of the business world. It is not only the State that has to move, I think we must think in terms of community welfare ”. The other piece is immigration, «which must be regulated and welcoming, and also functional to the country-system. There are some models that have been successful ».