ROME (Reuters) – Births in Italy are heading for a new record low in 2024, national statistical bureau ISTAT said on Monday, marking a 16th consecutive annual decline and the lowest number since Italian unification in 1861.
Italy’s ever-falling birth rate is considered a national emergency, but despite successive governments pledging to make it a priority, none have so far been able to halt the drop.
Between January and July there were 4,600 fewer births than in the same period last year, a 2.1% drop, ISTAT said in a statement.
In 2023 as a whole Italy recorded 379,890 births, with roughly six newborns per thousand residents. That represented a 3.4% drop on 2022 and a decline of 34.1% from 2008 – the last year the country saw an increase in the number of babies born.
Data for the first seven months show a fertility rate, meaning the average number of children born to each woman, of 1.2, far below the rate of 2.1 needed for a steady population.
Scope Ratings said this month that Italy’s demographics are the worst in Europe in terms of economic growth potential between 2023 and 2040, with a rapidly ageing population posing a threat to the country’s strained public finances.
Last year Italy had the lowest employment rate in the European Union, according to Eurostat data.
Other findings in ISTAT’s report showed that last year women in Italy had their first child on average at 31 years of age, roughly stable from 2022, and that 42.4% of babies were born to unmarried women, up from 41.5% the year before.
(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, editing by Gavin Jones and Hugh Lawson)
