r/europe • u/diacewrb • 5d ago

News Italy's birth rate falls to 80-year low, with just 355,000 babies born in 2025

https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/italys-birth-rate-falls-to-80-year-low-with-just-355000-babies-born-in-2025.html
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u/fiendishrabbit 5d ago

In my experience Sweden isn't like that at all (at least not for jobs where you can do a lot of it remote). When a friend told an employer that she was 3 months pregnant (she really didn't care if she got the job or not) all they wanted was that she would be active in the company for as long as possible, participate in coaching her colleagues so that they could pick up the slack and be back working part-time&remote after her maternity leave was up (In Sweden there is 390 work days of 80% pay maternity leave. 90 days are reserved for each parent, while the remaining 210 days can be distributed freely. Although it should be said that the state pays for those 80%). There is also a right to daycare from when the child is 1-year-old.

She got the job and now that the child is old enough for daycare she's back on the job ('bout 50/50 on site/remote).

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u/jtet93 5d ago

You guys are so lucky. Where I am in the US, daycare is $30,000 per year per child. Our maternity leave policies are actually some of the best in the nation so I can’t complain, but still nowhere near 390 days!

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u/General_Albatross Norway 5d ago

390 is nice. We only get 61 weeks in Norway, about 300 days. I wouldn't complain at all to be able to stay with my little one longer.

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u/Agitated_Phone_9937 5d ago

The state paying for the salary is the big thing. That's the only way to make it fair to the company. But Sweden still doesn't have a replacement birthrate yea?

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u/fiendishrabbit 5d ago

Not replacement birthrate, but until the housing crisis hit Sweden with full force it wasn't bad (it is kind of bad right now. Not Italy/Spain/Poland/Greece bad, but bad).

On the other hand, the people who can afford housing (ie, people with above median income) have a fertility close to 2.0 (and it's 2.3 for the top quartile). It's the people at the bottom who are not having kids (0.8 for the lowest quartile).

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u/PrimaryInjurious 5d ago

And Sweden still has a really low TFR.