Molise, a region facing severe depopulation, is offering newcomers €700 a month for three years to live in one of its villages. However, there are a few conditions attached: the village must have fewer than 2,000 residents and the mover must commit to opening a business there.
“We want people to invest here. They can open any kind of business: a bakery, a stationery store, a restaurant, anything. It’s a way to add life to our towns and increase the population,” said Donato Toma, the mayor of Molise.
Mr. Toma also announced that each town with less than 2,000 residents will receive 10,000 euros (about 255 million VND) to build infrastructure and promote cultural activities.
“It’s not just a matter of population growth. People also need good infrastructure and a reason to stay, otherwise we will be back to square one in a few years,” he said.
Molise, with a population of 305,000, is one of the regions that has lost more residents in recent years – over 9,000 people have left since 2014, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat).
In 2018, more than 2,800 residents died or moved to other areas – an increase of nearly 1,000 from the previous year. Not a single birth was registered in the nine towns.
Italy's population decline
For the first time in 90 years, the number of Italian citizens living in Italy has fallen to around 55 million, according to Istat.
Between 2014 and 2018, the number of Italian citizens residing in the country fell by 677,000. According to experts, two main factors behind the decline are: 1) the birth rate is at an all-time low since the unification of Italy and 2) the increase in the migration of young people to other European countries in search of job opportunities. Nearly 157,000 Italians left the country in 2018, Istat said.
Italy is the only major economy in Europe whose population is expected to decline further over the next five years, according to the United Nations.
In an effort to revive these towns, some mayors, like the mayor of Sutera, Caltanissetta province in Sicily, have opened their empty homes to refugees from Libya.
Others, such as Sambuca, employ a strategy that has become fashionable in the South: selling (in effect giving away) empty houses to anyone willing to move in. The “symbolic” price of a house is just 1 € (about 25,000 VND).
