Italy is planning to entice women into having more children by offering families free farmland if they have a third child. If the scheme is implemented, parents who have a third child between 2019 and 2021 would be given plots of state-owned farmland to run for 20 years. They would also be offered zero-interest loans of up to £175,000 if they chose to buy their first home next to their new smallholding.
The initiative purportedly aims to increase the country’s flagging birth rate, which is the lowest in Europe. Last year, only 464,000 births were registered in Italy, which was a 2 per cent decline from 2016 and a record low.
“They say that Italians have few children and that something is needed to turn the trend around,” agriculture minister Gian Marco Centinaio said. “That’s why the ministry wants to contribute, favouring rural areas in particular, where people still have children.”
No comments:
Post a Comment