The National Institute of Statistics reported on Friday that the number of births in Italy declined for the fifteenth consecutive year in 2023 and reached an unprecedented level.
The continuing decline in Italy’s birth rate represents a national emergency that successive governments have not been able to deal with, despite repeated promises to give it priority.
Last year, Italy received 379,000 newborns, a decrease of 3.6 percent from the previous year and 34.2 percent from 2008, which was the last year in which the country witnessed an increase in the number of births, despite it being the lowest rate of increase since the unification of Italy in 1861.
The fertility rate fell to 1.20 children per woman from 1.24 in 2022, well below the 2.1 rate needed to keep the population stable.
Italy recorded about 661,000 deaths last year, which is a decrease from the previous three years, which witnessed an increase in the death rate in conjunction with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The average lifespan of an individual also jumped last year to 83.1 years, an increase of six months from 2022, the National Institute of Statistics said.
Although the gap between the number of deaths and births reached 282 thousand cases in 2023, the total population of Italy decreased by only seven thousand to 58.99 million people thanks to the arrival of more foreign immigrants and the return of Italian immigrants.
Foreigners represented 8.99 percent of Italy’s population in 2023, with a total of 5.3 million people, an increase of 3.2 percent year on year. Most of them live in the north of the country.
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