Modern women are bucking Italian family traditions, giving birth at a later age and opting for fewer kids, according to a report on motherhood released on Wednesday.
The study by the national statistics institute, Istat, found that the myth of the Italian mamma is losing its grip, with women prioritising studies and work over starting a family.
The average age for women to have their first child has risen from 25 to 29, said Istat, which surveyed 50,000 women who gave birth in 2003.
And although Italy has the lowest female employment rate in Europe, with only 45.3% of women between 15 and 64 holding jobs, a growing number of mums are realizing that having kids doesn't necessarily mean quitting work.
This in turn means that more and more women are looking to their parents and in-laws for help.
Around a fifth of population is now either a 'nonna' (granny) or nonno (grandpa), and 57% of these regularly look after their grandchildren, according to Istat.
In fact, over half of all toddlers are left in the care of grandparents when their mums head for work.
According to MP Sandra Cioffi, who chairs parliament's Bicameral Childhood Committee, this indicates that "the family - in this case the grandparents - continues to be the fundamental unit in society.
"The fact that 53% of children are left with grandparents shows that they have assumed the role of reconciling domestic responsibilities with work," she said.
But she admitted that for many working parents with young children there was no choice, and called for support structures across Italy to be strengthened.
In fact, a frequent complaint among the women questioned was the lack of childcare facilities.
Nearly a third said they would have liked to send their kids to nursery or kindergarten but were unable to, owing to either the distance, the lack of places or the high cost.
Another common complaint was the difficulty in trying to balance work, children and domestic tasks, the report found.
While women may be shaking off traditional family roles in some respects, in others, few advances have been made.
Nearly two thirds of working mums said they received no help whatsoever around the home. Over half of those who had support relied on cleaners, while just 17% said they could count on their partner to give them a hand.
Finally, the report also confirmed that the Italian stereotype of massive families no longer has much basis in reality.
Most of the women questioned said they only wanted one child, or at the very most two, reflected in the fact that there are currently just 1.33 kids born for every Italian woman of fertile age.
"Italy has one of the lowest fertility levels of any industrialized country, the result of a steady decline in births, which has been under way for around a century," the report noted.
