Only rich can afford to raise children in Italy, pets replacing kids in few households, says Pope Francis

Pope Francis on Friday said that starting a family has become a "titanic effort" in Italy that can be afforded by only rich people. The pope warned that "savage" free-market conditions were stopping young people from having children.

The birth rate dropped below 400,000 in Italy in 2022 for the first time as it registered the 14th consecutive annual fall with the overall population marking a decline by 179,000 to 58.85 million.

While addressing the conference on the growing demographic crisis, Pope Francis stated that the decline in the birthrate has signalled a dearth of hope for the future as younger generations remain weighed down by a sense of fragility, precariousness and uncertainty.

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"Difficulty in finding a stable job, difficulty in keeping one, prohibitively expensive houses, sky-high rents and insufficient wages are real problems," Pope Francis said while sitting along with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

"The free market, without the necessary corrective measures, becomes savage and produces increasingly serious situations and inequalities," he further stated.

The pope said that pets have started replacing children in a few households and recounted how a woman had opened her bag and requested a papal blessing for "her baby" at a recent audience, only to reveal to everyone that it was a dog.

"I lost my patience and upbraided her saying many children are hungry and you bring me a dog," Pope Francis said.

However, the pope acknowledged that there were "almost insurmountable constraints" on the country's young women who have to choose between motherhood and their career. "Given the high costs involved in raising children, people were revising their priorities," he stated.

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"We cannot passively accept that so many young people struggle to realise their family dream and are forced to lower the bar of desire, settling for mediocre substitutes: making money, aiming for a career, travelling, jealously guarding leisure time," Pope Francis said.

Italy's shrinking population has turned out to be a major worry for the third-largest country in the eurozone, as the economy minister warned this week that Italy's GDP faced the risk of declining by 18 percentage points in the next two decades if there is a continuation in current birth trends.

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