Apple+/Becker Entertainment
Baby Boom to Bust
For the first time in the history of our planet, old people outnumber the young. Looking at what this means for societies around the world, Baby Boom to Bust takes on one of the most controversial and pressing issues of our time. In Italy, which has the lowest birth rate in Europe, we helped the producers find contributors and experts to unpick the reasons why young men and women are putting off having children into their forties and limiting their families to a single child. Our research involved extensive interviews with sociologists, economists and women and men who had made the decision to forego having children. Fabio Di Segni accompanied the crew in their filming around Itally, organizing all shooting logistics, including eqipment hire, location permits, crew transport and catering.
The Episode in Italy tells the story of Laviano. All across Italy, you see beautiful medieval hill-top towns set in gorgeous landscapes. The stone houses seem to be built out of the very rock of the mountain, and have been there for hundreds of years. But if you look a little closer at the smaller and more remote towns, you discover that they are dying. First the young people leave to go to the cities to work, then there are no children, the nursery school and then the primary school closes, and eventually the shops and all the services go. The population that remains is almost entirely over 60.
Rocco Falivena is a man who doesn’t want to see this happen to his town, Laviano. Just across the valley he can see another town that is dying and it reminds him every day of the fate that could befall his own town if nothing is done to stop it.
So Rocco made a desperate attempt to save his town. As mayor, he offered 10,000 euros to every mother of a newborn baby: 1.500 at the birth, and the rest given out in annual sums upto the child’s entrance into primary school. It meant that the family had to stay in Laviano. And it worked, for the 4 years that it was in action. Before his scheme started, the average birthrate was 3 to 4 babies each year. During the initiative, 10 to 12 babies were born annually. Some of those children have started nursery school, and are helping it stay open. Soon, they’ll be entering the primary school.
If you ask Rocco why the birthrate was falling in Laviano, he’ll tell you that the reasons are complex but the most important is lack of work and isolation of the small town. He says there are 1,600 people living in Laviano, and 10 thousand living outside, (northern Italy, rest of Europe, the States and also Australia - could find some people in Australia to interview?). It’s the old story of emigration.
Rocco is very proud of his scheme and believes that it worked on two levels. First, it helped some people make the decision to have another baby – in some cases tipping the balance between leaving and staying in Laviano. And secondly, it was an alarm call to the government saying that places like Laviano need help. It worked in a sense, in that they got major news coverage (including BBC, CNN).
Sadly, the programme was stopped in August 2007 after Falivena lost the election (the situation is actually more complicated because due to some rule in the voting procedure, there isn’t a ‘mayor’ as such any longer). However, there is a person who took over the responsibilities of the mayor, Dott.ssa Sedullo, the Commissario for Laviano, and she felt the money was best spent elsewhere.
However, there may be a new chapter to the story in Laviano. Rocco will not be defeated, and is going to run again in the next election, and hopes to win and reinstate the programme. He says that Laviano only needs 2,000 inhabitants to keep the ‘machine’ of the town running (at the moment it’s 1,600). He is very welcoming to immigrants – everyone was eligible for the 10,000 euros – because the town needs people to shop in the 5 grocery stores, to get haircuts at the barber, etc.
He will get access to families who took the money, to the nursery school, to anyone you need to interview.
There is another story in Laviano, a very sad one. In 1980, there was an earthquake and the castle on the hill fell down on the village. It was early evening when all the children were out playing. 300 people died, many were children, found lying under the rubble with their footballs and bicycles. The damage to the town was enormous both economically and morally. People lost what little hope they had. Ironically, during the period of rebuilding, the population increased a little, but when the building sites closed, and the town had new houses, new council offices, people had no work and started leaving.