In 2023, there were 379,000 babies born in Italy. This is down from 393,000 babies in the prior year and represents a new record low. Already in 2022, the number of births was noted as being the fewest since Italy's unification in 1861. The result is a "demographic winter." Of course, this challenge is not unique to Italy. It is happening in most developed countries. Korea, for example, has a fertility rate somewhere around 0.72 babies per woman. Because of this, there are a lot of people in the world trying to figure out how to encourage more births.

Here is Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni:

Meloni, herself a mother of a single child, has said it is a priority for her government to increase the birth rate and encourage women to have more babies “for the simple reason that we want Italy to have a future again”.

So what's causing this?

One seemingly logical explanation could be that the employment rates for women and men are basically the same now. Fewer women are staying at home and so there's less time to have and raise children. In fact, the opposite is true. If you look at fertility rates across Europe, high birth rates tend to correlate with high employment rates for women. I guess families need to be able to afford children. Here's an excerpt from a Guardian article (c. 2015) on the topic of fertility:

The map of the fertility rate in European countries more or less overlaps with that of women in work. In countries with relatively buoyant populations, such as France and Scandinavia, women play an important part in the labour market. According to data for 2010 published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the employment rate for women aged 24 to 54 in work was 83.8% in France, 84.4% in Finland, 85.6% in Denmark and 87.5% in Sweden, barely lower than the equivalent figures for men. In contrast, in southern Europe and Japan the share of women in work was much lower: only 64.4% of them had a job in Italy, 71.6% in Japan, 72.2% in Greece and 78.3% in Spain.

Staying on the theme of being able to afford kids, another possible explanation might be that kids are expensive and so you need strong family-friendly government policies to help support them. While this I'm sure helps, there's data to suggest that the correlation between these policies and birth rates is actually fairly weak. That's why, even though many developed countries have expanded such policies, birth rates continue to fall. Here's a graphic by John Burn-Murdoch from FT:

So what the hell is it then? Well there is another possible explanation and it is that it's more of a cultural thing. In the above article, John makes the argument that a number of other more important factors are leading to declining birth rates. Namely, more people are choosing to live alone, and not as a couple. Priorities have shifted, where family formation is no longer seen as central to a fulfilling life. And more young people are generally anxious. (He doesn't get into why but I'm sure that it's possible to blame TikTok.)

But what really stood out to me was this graphic:

Since the 1960s, parenting has gotten systematically more intense for parents. The average number of hours per day spent by mothers on "hands-on parenting activities" has grown significantly in most developed countries. However, there is one clear exception: France. It turns out that the French are, at least based on this data, less likely to be so-called helicopter parents. Parenting is less hands-on, kids get more freedom and -- perhaps because of this -- France has the highest fertility rate in Europe at over 1.8 babies per woman.

This is not to say that France's family-friendly policies aren't doing something as well. I would imagine they are. But the above makes intuitive sense to me. If you create an environment where the threshold to be considered a good parent is constantly becoming more duanting and more life-consuming, it's no surprise to me that more and more people are simply saying, no thank you.

For those of you thinking about summer in Europe right now, here is an interesting WSJ article about the real estate market in Lake Como, Italy. It's behind a paywall, though, so here are two things that stood out to me.

Firstly, the market is all about foreign buyers:

The key driver of the Como market is, and has long been, foreign buyers. Prepandemic, Baysal estimated, non-Italian buyers were responsible for 70% to 80% of sales, with buyers from Russia, the U.K., Germany, and Switzerland leading the way. Today, foreign buyers still dominate. But while Russian and British buyers have gone quiet, said Baysal, North Americans stepped into their shoes last year, attracted by the relative strength of the dollar.

More:

Sara Zanotta, founder and managing director, Lakeside Real Estate, said most of her buyers are American, Swiss, Scandinavian and German vacation-home buyers. Armed with budgets of between $880,000 and $2.75 million, they are eager to buy a four- to five-bedroom villa, preferably historic, with a lake view and within walking distance of the water. Apartments in historic houses are also popular. “Outside space is a must,” she said. As a result of strong demand, Zanotta estimates that prices for this class of home have increased by around 20% between 2021 and 2022. 

Secondly, there appears to still be some deals if you don't need to be directly adjacent to George Clooney. The first home that is profiled in the article is a 1,000 sf two-bedroom condominium with a clear and direct view of the lake. It was purchased back in 2020-2021 for US$254,000.

That feels very reasonable -- $254 psf! The owner also purchased the property site unseen, visited it for the first time in 2021, and is somehow already approved for an Italian citizenship. (Doesn't naturalization usually take 5 years of residency?)

I can think of worse places to retire than Lake Como.

Back in 2020/2021 when we were getting ready to launch sales for One Delisle, the team came up with the idea of pill-shaped kitchen islands for our residences. 

What that means is we wanted to use perfect semi-circles on both ends. We didn’t want oval islands. We didn’t want distorted semi-circles. We wanted islands shaped like pills!

We felt these opened up the kitchens and also looked really unique. So with Studio Gang and the rest of the team, we proceeded to design a few different types.

We needed ones that would work for smaller suites, we needed ones that would work for larger suites, and we needed to accommodate breakfast bars/seating.

When we approached Scavolini Toronto about this idea their first response was, “we’ve never done this before. It would be a first.”

However, their second response was, “but we’ll figure it out with you.” And based on this response, we built (by hand) a pill-shaped island for our condominium sales gallery, and then included them as part of One Delisle.

Fast forward to 2023 and we are now in the “let’s figure it out phase”. This week we reviewed the very first production prototypes in Scavolini’s factory in Pesaro.

They are everything we could have hoped for, and we are thrilled that Scavolini was a willing partner in this endeavor.

It’s not easy doing new things in construction. The smallest things can (usually?) end up being a lot more work. But it all feels worth it when you get to see the results.