VATICAN CITY – Although Italians love children, in many Italian families, children's laughter will be missing from the Christmas table. Empty seats are often filled by pets. According to the statistical office, pets are the only population that has grown in Italy over the last 10 years.
Pope Francis has warned many times: „There is a culture that prioritises dogs and cats over children,“ the Argentine pope said a year ago. In childless Italy, animals often fill the void of loneliness. According to the statistical office (ISTAT), quoted by the daily Avvenire, the proportion of childless couples under the age of 65 who have pets has increased by 10 percentage points since 2006: from 38 to 47.9 per cent. Ten million households have at least one animal. The average number of dogs per family is 1.3 and cats 1.8. The amount Italians spend on their four-legged friends is also growing. They spend €7 billion on them annually.
Prams without children and dog sitters
As Avvenire points out, the consequences of these changes are visible at first glance. On the streets, we increasingly encounter prams carrying dogs or cats instead of children. The market is also adapting to new trends. More and more day centres for dogs and cats are being set up, offering a pick-up and drop-off service, highly advanced veterinary laboratories are being established, and supermarkets are devoting more and more space to pet supplies, often at the expense of shelves with products for children. Especially in large cities, the work of so-called dog sitters is becoming increasingly popular, while nannies are becoming increasingly rare, according to the Italian daily.
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