Birth rate falling, mortality rate sharply declining. The average number of children per woman drops to 1.20 from 1.24 in 2022. With just 379 thousand children coming into the world, 2023 gives us yet another historic low in births: it is the eleventh historic low in a row, since 2013. The reduction in the birth rate applies without distinction to those born with Italian and foreign citizenship. No surprises from the latest data released by Istat on demographic indicators, presented today. The contraction in the average number of children per woman affects the entire national territory. In the North the average number of children per woman is 1.21 in 2023, in the Center 1.12 and in the South the total fertility rate is 1.24. The postponement of births also starts again – continues Istat – «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 to potential mothers is reduced. After two years of substantial stability, in 2023 the average age at childbirth will rise to 32.5 years (+0.1 compared to 2022)”. This indicator continues to record values in the North and Center (32.6 and 32.9 years) higher than in the South (32.2), where however the greatest increase is observed in 2022 (it was 32.0).
Less than one child per woman in Sardinia
Trentino-Alto Adige, with an average number of children per woman of 1.42, continues to hold the record for the highest fertility in the country. Sicily and Campania follow, with an average number of children per woman of 1.32 and 1.29 respectively. In these three regions, new mothers are on average younger than in the rest of the country: the average age at childbirth in Sicily is 31.7 years; 32.2 years in Trentino-Alto Adige and Campania. Sardinia continues to be the region with the lowest fertility: permanently placed below the level of one child per woman for the fourth consecutive year, in 2023 it stands at 0.91 children.
One child under 10 for every over eighty year old
As of 1 January 2024, the resident population in Italy had an average age of 46.6 years. There are 14 million 358 thousand people over 65, equal to 24.3% of the total population. The number of people over eighty, the so-called elderly, is increasing: with 4 million 554 thousand individuals, almost 50 thousand more than 12 months earlier, this contingent has exceeded that of children under 10 years of age, which stands at 4 million 441 thousand individuals. This ratio, which is now below parity, was largely reversed in the past: 25 years ago in Italy there were 2.5 children under ten for every over-65 and 50 years ago there were 9 children under ten for every every elderly person.
However, deaths are also decreasing (661 thousand), 8% less than in 2022, a figure more in line with pre-pandemic levels compared to those that characterized the three-year period 2020-22. The natural balance of the Italian population is thus still strongly negative (-281 thousand units). Immigration (416 thousand people), with a positive migration balance with foreign countries of 274 thousand units (cancellations for foreign countries dropped to 142 thousand) allows us to have a resident population which in 2023 is – at least on a numerical level – substantially equilibrium.
The comment
«It is an endless collapse that we are witnessing, inert despite the repeated alarms. This demographic collapse is condemning us to an unsustainable future where we will not be able to cope with growing healthcare costs because the active population continues to decline. But the stability of the social security system is also compromised and the phenomena of depopulation of internal and rural areas, especially in the South, seems to compromise the future of entire areas of the country”, he declares Adriano BordignonPresident of the National Forum of Family Associations.
«A large country, ours, which will be increasingly smaller in the future, and will see its GDP decline due to the demographic variable. In the hypothesis most accredited by Istat, we are heading towards 13 million fewer inhabitants in the period 2023-2080. We will lose the equivalent of the current entire population of the South if we do not intervene promptly, with long-term planning and huge resources. In the same period, Istat forecast data tell us that the potential workforce will halve, as will the young contingent, and the elderly component will explode, with the ‘grand old’ almost tripling. Faced with all this, we need a shock recovery plan that national, but also European and local, politics must immediately take charge of. We can’t waste any more time otherwise we will be remembered as those who knew and didn’t act.”
Photo on Rod Long su Unsplash