Unless you have family who can help, combining family and work is very difficult

Cynthia Palozzi, insurance clerk

During the Renaissance they set the image down in stone but Bologna's women are turning their backs on the myth and having fewer children here than anywhere else in Italy.

Cynthia Palozzi, 35, an insurance clerk who lives with her boyfriend, is typical of the women who are choosing not to have children.

"There are too few nursery schools, especially in Bologna, so, unless you have family who can help, combining family and work is very difficult."

While in many parts of the world a low birth rate is a highly cherished goal, in Italy is cause for alarm: the population is forecast to fall by nearly a third over the next fifty years.

Italians have now been instructed by the Pope to "rediscover the culture of life and love and... their mission as parents".

But raising a family these days might need a little more concrete support.

Practical help

Bologna's regional government is running a special project to provide more choices for women.

It is an idea now being tried by a number of other Italian cities in the hope that offering more support for mothers will encourage them to have more children.

The Pope has urged Italians to rediscover their "mission as parents"

At the main family centre in Bologna, Veronica Pachotti is applying for the special grant to stay home for a year to look after her son, Archimedes, aged two-and-a-half months.

She explains that she does not want to go straight back to work after the three month maternity benefit runs out.

Bologna is providing money for 300 families to look after their children at home for a year.

They say women on the project are already talking about having more children.

Dr Maria Rosi, the family policy advisor to Bologna council, says it takes the strain off the public institutions like the the nursery schools, where there are big waiting lists.

"Above all it benefits the parents and the children."

Family (un)friendly

While the "One Year Off " project may indeed be of benefit, there is still a desperate need for more nursery places.

Only thirty percent of those who want a place, get one.

But while more nurseries are needed, only a few more are planned.

The council says they are too expensive and it also has to support the growing number of older people in the city.

Mothers are clearly frustrated at the lack of state support.

But they think employers should also do their bit, provide workplace nurseries and offer parents the choice of flexible working hours.

Women in Italy are riding high on new found freedoms, both at work and in planning families.

But without more help to combine both, many will simply opt to leave family life behind.