Births in Italy fell to historic lows in 2023, marking the 15th consecutive annual decline. This is what emerges from the Istat bulletin published today and related to demographic indicators for the year 2023.
Last year, according to provisional data, the births resident in Italy were 379 thousand, down by 3.6 percent compared to 2022 (-14 thousand units) and by 34.2 percent (-197 thousand units) compared to 2008 , the last year in which our country saw an increase in new births.
This is the lowest figure since 1861. The birth rate in fact stood at 6.4 per thousand, a further decline compared to the 6.7 per thousand in 2022. The fertility rate thus fell to 1.2 children per woman from 1.24 in 2022, far below the 2.1 which guarantees a stable population and dangerously close to the historic minimum of 1.19 children per woman in 1995.
In 2023, Italy recorded approximately 282 thousand more deaths than new births but the overall population fell by only seven thousand units, reaching 58.99 million. All this thanks to the arrival of new foreign immigrants and the return of Italian emigrants.
The overall population of our country has been constantly decreasing since 2014, with an accumulated loss of over 1.36 million people over the last ten years, equivalent to the number of inhabitants of Milan. Furthermore, in 2023, almost one in four residents in Italy were over 65 years old, recording for the first time a greater number of elderly people over 80 than children under 10.
“As of 1 January 2024, the resident population has an average age of 46.6 years, up by two decimal points (approximately three months) compared to 1 January 2023,” we read in the Istat bulletin. “The population over sixty-five, which as a whole at the beginning of 2024 numbers 14 million 358 thousand individuals, constitutes 24.3 percent of the total population, compared to 24 percent the previous year”.
“The number of people over eighty, the so-called very elderly, is increasing: with 4 million 554 thousand individuals, almost 50 thousand more than 12 months before, this contingent has exceeded that of children under 10 years of age (4 million 441 thousand individuals),” he continues the note. “This ratio, which is now below parity, was 2.5 to 1 twenty-five years ago and 9 to 1 fifty years ago.”
All this is due to a general decline in demographic indices. “The decrease in the number of resident births in 2023 is determined both by a significant contraction in fertility and by the decline in the female population in the conventionally reproductive ages (15-49 years), which fell to 11.5 million on 1 January 2024, from 13 .4 million which was in 2014 and 13.8 million in 2004,” reads the bulletin. “Even the male population of the same age, among other things, suffers the same fate in the same time period, going from 13.9 million in 2004 to 13.5 million in 2014, up to today's 12 million individuals”.
A phenomenon that applies to both Italians and foreigners. “The reduction in the birth rate applies without distinction to those born with Italian and foreign citizenship,” reads the note. “The latter, equal to 13.3 percent of the total number of newborns, are 50 thousand, 3 thousand less than in 2022”.
But the general social and economic conditions of the country lead to the birth of the first child being increasingly postponed, with negative effects on demography. “In this context, the postponement of births starts again, a phenomenon with a significant impact on the general reduction in fertility, since the more decisions about motherhood are delayed, the more the time available for potential mothers is reduced,” underlines Istat.
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