For three decades, no one was born here. Then came Lara Bussi Trabucco

High above the Abruzzo mountains, in the small Italian village of Pagliara dei Marsi, cats rule the streets. They slip through doorways, lounge on stone walls, and roam freely across lanes that have grown quieter with time. Human voices have faded here over decades of steady depopulation. Until recently, the village’s soundtrack was mostly the soft echo of paws and purring. That silence was broken in March. For the first time in nearly three decades, a baby was born in Pagliara dei Marsi.

Nine-month-old Lara Bussi Trabucco has lifted the village’s population to around 20 and transformed everyday life. Her baptism filled the tiny church opposite her home, drawing every resident, and more than a few cats. In a place long accustomed to ageing faces, Lara has become an event in herself. “People who had never heard of Pagliara dei Marsi are now coming just because of Lara,” said her mother, Cinzia Trabucco. “She’s not even a year old, and she’s already famous.” Her birth has sparked joy, but it also exposes the depth of Italy’s demographic decline.

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According to Istat, Italy’s national statistics agency, the country recorded just 369,944 births in 2024, the lowest figure ever documented. The fertility rate fell to 1.18 children per woman, placing Italy among the lowest in the European Union. Preliminary data for 2025 suggests the situation is worsening. No region reflects the crisis more sharply than Abruzzo, where births dropped by 10.2% in the first seven months of 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier. Pagliara dei Marsi, though tiny, mirrors a national reality: shrinking communities, empty classrooms, and a rapidly ageing population straining public services.

“This village has lost generation after generation,” said Mayor Giuseppina Perozzi, who lives just steps from Lara’s home. “We’ve lost many elderly residents, and no one has replaced them.” Perozzi hopes Lara’s arrival might inspire others, though she acknowledges how rare such decisions have become.

Trabucco, 42, teaches music and spent years working in Rome before moving to the village of her grandfather’s birth. She wanted to raise a child far from city congestion. Her partner, Paolo Bussi, 56, works in construction and is originally from the area. They receive a €1,000 baby bonus, introduced by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government in 2025, along with a monthly child allowance of about €370. The incentives are part of efforts to confront what Meloni has called Italy’s “demographic winter.” Yet the couple says money alone does little to solve deeper problems.

Balancing work and childcare is difficult, they say, in a country where nursery spaces remain scarce, and support for working mothers is weak. Many women leave the workforce during pregnancy and struggle to return. Education is another worry. Pagliara dei Marsi hasn’t had its own teacher in decades. While nearby towns still have primary schools, closures linked to falling birthrates raise doubts about their long-term survival. “The system needs a complete overhaul,” Trabucco said. “We pay high taxes, but we don’t get services that make family life easier.”