Large families? Increasingly poor. And also a little lonely.
«The data reported in the latest report on poverty in Italy presented by Istat – comments Alfredo Caltabiano, president of Anfn, the association that brings together and gives voice to large families in Italy – are unequivocal: almost 35 families out of 100, made up of a couple of parents and (at least) three children, are below the relative poverty threshold and do not enjoy the same opportunities reserved for all the others».
«The family, fiscal and labor policies carried out, in recent years, by the Government – Caltabiano reconstructs – have had some positive impact on families with one or two children. Not yet, evidently, on large families, which continue to be the poorest. In fact, they have become even poorer than before (in 2023, for every 100 families with at least three children, 32 – therefore 3% less – were below the relative poverty level)».
Anfn recognizes “the efforts made to date” and the “good initiatives adopted by the Government and in particular by the Ministry for the Family to protect families and promote birth rates”: “such as, for example, the 50% increase in the Single Allowance for large families for the first three years of a child’s life, the reduction in contributions for working mothers with three or more children or the inclusion of large families among the privileged categories for access to the Consap guarantee fund for home purchases. We welcomed – observes the president of Anfn – the confirmation of the ministerial fund assigned to municipalities to guarantee access to summer camps for the most fragile families: “We hope, now, that local authorities – which are responsible for allocating resources – take into account the specificity of large families”.
“The news of these days is the launch of the provision on the Tari bonus, the tax for the collection and disposal of waste requested by the Municipalities that, in recent years, had grown significantly, penalizing especially large families: because the variable quota is affected by the number of members and because the homes that host large families are, generally, a little larger than those of small families, if only for the need to guarantee a minimum vital space for each member. The government did well to want to recognize the relief to families with at least four dependent children with an ISEE of 20 thousand euros, as it has already done for the utility bill bonus”.
But “evidently the efforts made to date have not yet been sufficient”.
A solution could come from “a bill on large families, linked to the public finance maneuver for 2025”: a bill that the Government has included in the medium-term budget structural plan. “We hope that it will materialize as soon as possible: in times of birth crisis – observes Alfredo Caltabiano – large families are a reason for hope for Italy”.
The political observatory of Anfn proposes, in particular “two interventions aimed at reducing the risk of poverty: the elimination of the Single Allowance from the calculation of the ISEE, and the activation of the Large Family Card, with the involvement of all those ministries that with the card can activate measures and benefits for families with three or more children”.