People in the North live a year and a half longer than those in the South: here is the map of inequalities
The disparities at local level are even greater: life expectancy in Trento is three years longer than in Campania. In the South, there are also more people who forgo medical treatment
Italians in the North and Centre live, on average, almost a year and a half longer than their compatriots in the South – a difference in life expectancy that has practically doubled in favour of the North over the course of twenty years. And the regional disparities are even more striking: in Trento, for example, people live a full three years longer than in Campania, just as people in Veneto and the Marche live almost two years longer (1.8) than those in Sicily and Molise. This is one of the most striking indicators on the new map of health inequalities, as recently updated by Istat using the BES indicators – which analyse Equitable and Sustainable Well-being in Italia through 148 indicators divided into 12 sectors. Among these is health status, which in our country varies increasingly according to postcode: whilst life expectancy at birth in 2025 stood at 83.7 years, with Italia ranking third in Europe after Spain and Sweden (84 and 83.8 years respectively), at a regional level, the divides that split our country into at least two distinct parts become apparent.
In the South, life expectancy in 2025 was 82.8 years, compared with 84.2 in the North and 84 in the Centre: in practice, 16 months and 14 months longer in the Centre-North, a figure that has risen since 2004, when life expectancy in the North and Centre was only 0.7 years higher than in the South. Consequently, most southern regions, as well as Lazio and Piedmont (both at 83.6 years, 0.1 years below the Italia average), fall below the national average.
These inequalities are also confirmed by the figures on healthy life expectancy, which once again in the Centre-North (with the exception of Emilia-Romagna, where the figure is slightly lower) exceed the national average of 59.1 years, whilst almost all regions in the South fall below this: in fact, the gap here exceeds 10 years, with Bolzano, where residents can expect to live 67.9 years in good health, Trento at 62.7 years and Friuli at 62.1, compared with 52.6 years in Calabria, 54.9 years in Basilicata and 55.9 years in Sicily. That is not all: as reported by Istat, the highest levels of infant mortality are also recorded in the South (with rates of 2.9 per 1,000 live births in the South and 3.3 on the Islands) as do cancer mortality rates (8.3 per 10,000 residents in the South and 7.9 on the Islands, compared with 7.2 in the Centre and the North-West and 6.6 in the North-East).
These are truly significant disparities – linked to poorer healthcare provision as well as less healthy lifestyles – which lend even greater weight to the warning issued by the Head of State, Sergio Mattarella, on 28 October during the ‘Days of Research’, specifically regarding the risk that health inequalities will widen: ‘The National Health Service was established to ensure that the right to health is a full right of citizenship. Its purpose would be undermined if the available resources, the provision of care, or the quality of facilities and infrastructure were to widen rather than narrow inequalities.’ And the budget bill currently under discussion risks making matters worse by allocating an additional 2.4 billion for 2027 – less than half of the 5.5 billion requested by Health Minister Orazio Schillaci (5.5 billion) and by the regions themselves, which had requested 6.8 billion for next year alone in order to guarantee services.
Incidentally, in a vicious circle, in areas where health outcomes are already poorer, there is also a higher proportion of people who go without treatment due to waiting lists, costs or difficulties in accessing healthcare services: according to Istat, in 2025 over 5.6 million Italians (9.6 per cent) reported having foregone at least one healthcare service despite needing it. Over the course of a year, the indicator for foregoing treatment fell in the North from 9.2 per cent to 8.7 per cent, whilst figures remained stable in Central Italy (10.7 per cent) and Southern Italy (10.3 per cent), ‘resulting in a widening regional gap’. Among Italians who are most likely to forgo treatment are Sardinians: practically one in five (19.5 per cent) have postponed a healthcare service, including routine check-ups, consultations or preventive tests.
