Bringing Italy’s demographic challenge under one roof is Piacenza’s innovative program “Elderly and Children Together”, which encourages older people to come into contact with children in nursing homes so that young people come to terms with the presence of older people.

Italy’s population is shrinking at the fastest rate in the Western world, forcing the country to adapt, and the aging population is also known as the “silver tsunami”. On the other hand, the sharp decline in the birth rate has led Prime Minister Georgia Meloni to declare that Italy is doomed to extinction unless something changes.

The government approved a “Third Age Agreement” earlier this month to reform insurance and healthcare systems to deal with the population explosion of the elderly. “They represent the heart of society, a living archive of knowledge, traditions and invaluable wisdom,” the prime minister said, stressing that the new law will not allow the marginalization and “parking” of older people in institutions.

Cristiano Gori, a member of the organization that introduced the law, says the bill – a creation of Mario Draghi’s previous government – aims to fix what he describes as “an administrative mess of overlapping powers.” Older Italians will now be asked to live at home with government support. “The main problem is the lack of funds,” says Gori, who is hopeful that the Meloni government will honor its commitment to support families. But the prime minister, who was pregnant during a previous election campaign, is under fire for her party’s zero-immigration policy. Meloni is harming the country’s demographic future with his claims of population replacement.

At the same time, bureaucratic hurdles have delayed an ambitious 3 billion euro European Recovery Fund program to build kindergartens and kindergartens across Italy. These funds were to finance the creation of 1857 kindergartens and 333 kindergartens. “Unless Italy gets serious and starts encouraging families and working mothers to have children, it will forever remain an aging country,” says Alessandro Rosina, author of A Demographic History of Italy. The combination of low birth rates, the flight of young professionals and families, limited immigration and increased life expectancy is a demographic disaster, Rosina said.

Some regions of the country are trying to reverse the demographic bomb by pushing older people to stay in the labor market so they can continue to contribute to the insurance system and be independent.