Istat, 2023 births in Italy fall again, record number of over 100s

The decline in births in 2023 in Italy continues. This is what emerges from the demographic indicators - year 2023 published today by Istat. According to provisional data, there are 379,000 resident births in Italy, with a birth rate of 6.4 per thousand (it was 6.7 per thousand in 2022). The decrease in births with respect to 2022 is 14 thousand (-3.6%). Since 2008, the last year in which there was an increase in births in Italy, the decrease is 197,000 (-34.2%). The average number of children per woman will thus drop from 1.24 in 2022 to 1.20 in 2023, coming very close to the historical minimum of 1.19 children recorded back in 1995. Elon Musk, Ceo of Tesla and president of X, the old Twitter, also spoke on the subject: 'Only 379,000 people will be born in Italy in 2023,' Musk wrote, 'The lowest annual figure since the unification of the country in 1861.

In Italy, the resident population is slightly decreasing. On 1 January 2024, it was 58 million 990 thousand units (provisional data), down by 7 thousand units compared to the same date of the previous year (-0.1 per thousand inhabitants). Confirming what had already emerged in 2022 (-33 thousand units), the slowdown in the population decline that, from 2014 to 2021 (-2.8 per thousand on average per year), marked the country as a whole, continues. This is what emerges from ISTAT's report on demographic indicators for the year 2023. The population variation reveals a heterogeneous picture. In the South, the variation is negative (-4.1 per thousand). In the North, on the other hand, it increases by 2.7 per thousand. That of the Centre is stable (+0.1 per thousand).

On 1 January 2024, the resident population had an average age of 46.6 years, up by two decimal points (about three months) from 1 January 2023. The population aged 65 years and over, which totalled 14 million 358 thousand individuals at the beginning of 2024, constitutes 24.3% of the total population, up from 24% the previous year. The number of over-eighty-year-olds, the so-called great elderly, is increasing: with 4 million 554 thousand individuals, almost 50 thousand more than 12 months earlier, this contingent has surpassed that of children under the age of 10 (4 million 441 thousand individuals). Liguria is the oldest region, with a 29% share of over-65s and a 10.3% share of over-80s. The estimated number of over-centenarians reaches its highest historical level at the beginning of 2024, exceeding 22,500, more than 2,000 more than the previous year.