Birth rates in Italia continue to fall, with 14,000 fewer births expected in 2025: 44.1 per cent of these are to unmarried parents

There continues to be a higher proportion of births to mixed-nationality and foreign couples in the Centre-North, where the foreign population is more stable and deeply rooted. In 2025, the proportion of these births out of the total stands at 31.2 per cent in the North and 24.7 per cent in the Centre, whilst in the South it stands at 10.0 per cent, well below the national average (22.6 per cent).

Looking solely at children born to parents who are both foreign nationals, the pattern remains similar, with the proportion in the South – although up on 2024 – remaining lower than elsewhere (6.1 per cent compared with a national figure of 13.8 per cent). In the North, the proportion of foreign-born children stands at 18.9 per cent, whilst in the Centre it is 15.2 per cent. For the first year, Liguria is the region with the highest proportion of foreign-born children out of the total (21.8 per cent), followed by Emilia-Romagna (21.6 per cent) and Lombardy (19.4 per cent). In Central Italy, Tuscany stands out (17.8 per cent), whilst in Southern Italy the figure ranges from a low of 4.4 per cent in Sardinia to a high of 10.0 per cent in Abruzzo.

Taking into account the specific nationality of the parents, the most common among foreign nationalities is Romanian (9,645 children born in 2025 with at least one parent of that nationality), followed by Moroccan (9,636) and Albanian (8,353). As regards the composition of the parental couple, significant differences are observed in terms of homogamy. For example, amongst Nigerian nationals, in 91.2 per cent of cases both parents hold that nationality, compared with 8.8 per cent of cases where only one partner holds it. The proportion of parents sharing the same nationality is also particularly high amongst Chinese parents (81.4 per cent of cases). Conversely, the lowest rate of homogamy is recorded for Ukrainian citizenship (50.4 per cent), most often involving couples where the mother is Ukrainian and the father is Italian (44.6 per cent). Conversely, in the opposite scenario – where the father is a foreign national with an Italian partner – the nationality with the highest proportion of mixed-nationality births out of the total is Tunisian (20.2 per cent).

44.1 per cent of births take place outside marriage. The number of births to unmarried couples in 2025 stands at 156,874. Compared with 2008, the total number has increased by over 43,000, but in the last year – as in the two previous years – there has been a decrease (-1.8 per cent), albeit less pronounced than for births within marriage. The number of births within marriage has, in fact, fallen by 5.4% compared with 2024, standing at 198,898. The proportion of births outside marriage thus continues to rise: in 2025 it stood at 44.1 per cent, up 0.9 percentage points on 2024 and up 24.4 percentage points on 2008. In particular, the proportion of children born to parents who have never been married is rising (from 36.9 per cent in 2024 to 38.0 per cent in 2025), whilst the proportion of births to couples in which at least one parent has been previously married continues to fall, albeit slightly (from 6.2 per cent in 2024 to 6.1 per cent in 2025). This is reported by Istat in its report ‘Birth Rates and Fertility of the Resident Population – Year 2025’.

For the first time, the National Institute of Statistics notes, in Central Italy one in two children is born outside marriage (50.1 per cent). In the North, this proportion stands at 43.1 per cent, whilst in the South – although it continues to record the lowest level – it has risen to 42.3 per cent, following an increase of 2 percentage points. The differences between the country’s regions therefore continue to narrow, with the South having come very close to the North’s figure.

Sardinia remains the region with the highest proportion of births outside marriage (59.4 per cent), followed by Lazio (51.7 per cent). In Southern Italy, the highest proportion is found in Abruzzo (49.9 per cent). The lowest percentages are recorded in Basilicata (33.0 per cent) and Calabria (35.7 per cent).

The proportion of children born outside marriage continues to be higher amongst parents who are both Italian (48.3 per cent in 2025). Among mixed-nationality couples, the proportion of children born outside marriage is higher in cases where the father is a foreign national (36.8 per cent) than in those where the mother is a foreign national (26.2 per cent). For children born to parents who are both foreign nationals, the proportion born to unmarried couples stands at 29.6 per cent, a full 18.7 percentage points lower than the proportion observed among children born to Italian couples.

The trend towards having children outside marriage amongst younger people is continuing, a sign that the ways in which the younger generations plan and build families are changing. For mothers aged up to 24, the proportion of children born outside marriage stands at 62.4 per cent; for those aged between 25 and 34, it is 44.5 per cent. However, if both partners in the couple are Italian, these figures rise to 78.7 per cent and 49.5 per cent respectively. After the age of 34, the proportion of children born outside marriage stands at 39.7 per cent for all couples and at 42.2 per cent amongst couples where both parents are Italian. Births outside marriage mainly concern those to unmarried parents (86.2 per cent of the nearly 157,000 births outside marriage in 2025), confirming an increasingly widespread trend of not regarding marriage as a necessary condition for having children. Among mothers aged 24 and under, for example, the proportion of births to parents who have never been married accounts for 57.9 per cent of the total, compared with 39.6 per cent among those aged between 25 and 34 and 31.5 per cent among mothers over the age of 34.