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The village of Laviano, Italy, will pay nearly $14,000 to any family who has a baby there. Laviano needs people. Only four babies were born in the village in 2000, followed by the same number in 2001. The 2003 program of a financial incentive for babies born there started to make a difference immediately. That year, eleven babies were born in Laviano.

Laviano was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1980, and the population dropped by half, leaving 1,500. The earthquake killed 300 people, and the cemetery sits right in the center of town, as a reminder of what happened. Many of Laviano’s new buildings are boxy and uninspired, all rebuilt after the quake.

All of Italy is suffering from a steadily diminishing birthrate, one of the lowest in the world. The mayor of Laviano is hoping the financial incentive for babies will keep people from leaving, and maybe sound an alarm. The money goes to the parents over the first five years of the child’s life, and nearly 20 couples have taken advantage of the program since Mayor Falivena began it in 2003.

Experts are not as optimistic that an incentive will be enough to change Laviano’s fortune. There is not enough employment in Laviano to keep people there, and not enough people to stimulate the economy. Much of the town’s brand new housing sits empty, the only movie theatre closed, and the elementary school averages less than 20 students in each of its first through eighth grades.

The little village is not alone in its problems. Because Italians are living longer, the Italian population is aging, which means fewer able-bodied workers to pay taxes and contribute to pensions. Meanwhile, the part of the population that’s using pensions and old-age healthcare keeps growing. The highest percentage of people 65 or older in the world live in Italy: 18.6% in 2003.

According to Rome’s Institute for Population Research and Social Policies, the solution is not to pay women to have babies, but instead to improve conditions for working mothers. If the work environment were more friendly toward mothers and fathers, couples would be more likely to welcome children.

The Italian culture has always been pro-children, and the Roman Catholic Church has always issued the edict that the faithful go forth and multiply. Yet even with six months paid maternity leave, Italy is behind most of Europe, and provides little affordable childcare.

Recently, the survival of Italy’s villages has depended on the central government’s granting tax cuts, free business licensing, low-interest loans and other financial breaks, according to the Association of Small Towns. It isn’t happening, and many people are moving back to the cities for the services they need. Even the mayor of Laviano admits that his own wife, an architect, and his two children, live in Salerno. They reunite on the weekends. The family may never be able to live together in Laviano, unless things change.

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