Italy, the Coronavirus Pandemic and Demographic Winter, by Jennifer Roback Morse

COMMENTARY: Demographic winter is a slow-moving train wreck. It has been for some time.

By Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., National Catholic Register, 4/3/2

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., is the author of  The Sexual State: How Elite Ideologies Are Destroying Lives.  She is the founder and president of The Ruth Institute, an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.

Heartbreaking stories have emerged from the coronavirus pandemic in Italy. Hospitals are too full. Doctors are overworked. People die alone. Coffins pile up. The Pope walks through empty Roman streets, praying alone.

The coronavirus has created these scenes. Yet, behind the scenes of the crisis is another one. Slow-moving, largely hidden, yet destructive both physically and socially, a problem people prefer to ignore. I am speaking of demographic winter: the worldwide fertility decline. This problem aggravates the coronavirus crisis.

The coronavirus is especially lethal for the elderly. The death rate (deaths per number of cases) is 15% for people over 80, 8% for people in their 70s, 3% for people in their 60s and less than 1% for people under 50. The countries with the highest number of cases and fatalities per capita are countries with a large percentage of elderly people. For instance, Italy’s fertility rate is now 1.33 children per woman, far below the replacement level of 2.1. As a result, Italy has a rapidly aging population. Almost a quarter (23%) of Italy’s population is now over 65 years of age. In 2019, the median age was 46.3, projected to rise to 51.4 by 2050. An aging population is creating and will continue to create rising costs for both pensions and health care.

Read more here:  https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/italy-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-demographic-winter