The disappearance of Italians: the hidden figure

The total population of foreign origin in Italia aged under thirty is therefore currently in the region of 3.5–3.6 million people. The total population under the age of 30 in Italia, taking into account all age groups from 0 to 29, is approximately 15.5 million. The ratio is 3.5 / 15.5 = 22.5 per cent. Almost a quarter.

If we limit ourselves to those under 25, the figure rises even further because younger cohorts have increasing proportions of foreign origin: in 2024, according to ISTAT, 21.8 per cent of newborns will have at least one foreign-born parent (13.7 per cent with both parents foreign-born, 8.1 per cent from mixed-nationality couples). If we add to these those born to ‘new Italians’ (i.e. Italians who have acquired Italian citizenship, not by descent), the proportion of newborns of foreign origin exceeds 25 per cent and, in some northern regions, exceeds 30 per cent. The age pyramid is being filled from the bottom up by a population of non-Italian origin, and this is the key factor in understanding the country’s future.

If we look at the geographical distribution, the picture becomes even more extreme. ISTAT has just reported that foreign nationals are concentrated in the Centre-North (83.2 per cent of the total) and, in particular, in medium-sized and large municipalities: 31.6 per cent of resident foreign nationals live in municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. In Milan, Brescia, Bergamo, Turin, Bologna, Modena and Reggio Emilia – to name but a few – the proportion of children under 30 of foreign origin already exceeds 30 per cent, and in some primary schools in the Centre and North it is common for 40–50 per cent of a class to be made up of children with at least one non-Italian parent. No comprehensive statistics are available on this either, but parents and teachers in the urban areas of the North are well aware of this.

The methodological reason is that ISTAT classifies as ‘Italian’ any person who holds Italian citizenship, regardless of when or how they obtained it. A Nigerian woman who becomes an Italian citizen after ten years’ residence disappears from the ‘foreigners’ column and is included in the ‘Italians’ column from the moment she acquires citizenship. Her children, born in Italia, are Italian from birth if she arrived in the country before giving birth, or they automatically become Italian on reaching the age of eighteen. All these procedures are entirely legally sound; however, they produce statistics that do not adequately describe the demographic origin of the population. To obtain the ‘true’ figure for foreign origin, one must add together the figures – foreign residents + new Italians + undocumented migrants – which no statistical institute explicitly does. ISTAT publishes the three components separately, but never combines them into a single table. The same applies to the age distribution: ISTAT publishes the average age of foreign nationals (37 years) and that of Italians (47.8 years), but does not calculate the proportion of people of ‘foreign origin’ in the younger age groups.

If we add together the three components of the population currently living in Italia who are of foreign origin, the total comes to 13.2 per cent, and 19.8 per cent among young people. It should be noted that, as some of the data is more than a year out of date, these figures relate to January 2025 and are therefore likely to have risen further by now.

Using the conservative weightings applied here, the national average for the under-30s comes out at 19.8 per cent. This is because ISTAT classifies a child born in Italia to a mother who has already been naturalised as ‘Italian by birth’: such children are not included in the ‘new Italians’ column — they are listed directly under ‘native Italians’ in the civil registry statistics. The conservative estimate of 200k ‘new Italians’ in the 0–9 age group actually underestimates the proportion of foreign-born children in that cohort.

If we add:

The children of ‘new Italians’ aged 0–9 today (who are Italian by descent but of foreign origin): ~250–300k additional

Children of mixed-race couples (8.1% of births in 2024): a further ~300k in the 0–9 age group

Result: the actual proportion of people of foreign origin (in an ethno-demographic, rather than legal, sense) in the 0–9 age group is around 25–28%

By far the most striking figure is that for the 20–29 age group (25.4 per cent) and the 30–39 age group (26.6 per cent): one in four people of working and childbearing age is of foreign origin. This is the key age group from a demographic perspective — they will be the ones to have children over the next two decades.

Let’s put the pieces of the picture together. On the one hand, a ‘native’ population with an average age of around 50 and a fertility rate of 0.90 children per woman: in four generations it will have fallen by two-thirds; in fifty years it will have halved; in a hundred years it risks physical extinction as a demographic majority. On the other hand, a population of foreign origin that already accounts for 14 per cent of the total, but more importantly is estimated at 22–25 per cent of young people under 30, with higher fertility rates (1.79 children per woman for resident foreign women alone, and even higher among younger age groups). If we project these two trends over thirty years – the span of a single generation – the Italian population of ‘non-native’ origin will constitute the absolute majority of young people under 30, and within another generation, the majority of the total population.

One might regard this as a desirable outcome (Italia becomes a ‘mixed’, multicultural, multi-ethnic and more ‘dynamic’ state), or as an undesirable one (the population of Italian descent ceases to be the majority in its own country, and with it its language, culture, customs and traditions). However, this relates to political assessments which we do not intend to dwell upon in this analysis.

However, something can be said regarding public policy, by drawing some comparisons between public policies and also highlighting a phenomenon that is by no means insignificant. The difference between Italia and countries such as Denmark, France, Israel and, nowadays, South Korea, is that in those countries the ‘native’ population is not in free fall: in Denmark the TFR is 1.7, in France 1.56, in Israel it is 2.9 (1.96 even for secular Jewish women), and in South Korea it has rebounded from 0.72 to 0.99 in eighteen months due to a stock market boom that has increased young people’s economic security. In Italia, not only does the ‘native’ population have a TFR of 0.90, but there are fewer and fewer ‘native’ young people (who are the focus of this article) of reproductive age: of the 15.5 million under-30s currently resident, only around 12 million (as shown in the table above). The demographic base on which the Italian birth rate could be rebuilt is shrinking before our very eyes. Meanwhile, the exodus of young Italians is accelerating. In the last four years alone, the figure has been around 470,000.

The demographic shift is also asymmetrical: on average, less-qualified people are moving in, whilst more-qualified people are moving out; young foreigners with fertility rates of 1.8 children per woman are moving in, whilst young Italians who would have had children in Italia had they stayed are moving out. One figure among many is that of 50,000 nurses who have emigrated in search of higher salaries in Northern Europe and also in Spain over the last 25 years.

Almost 14 per cent of the population currently living in Italia is of foreign origin, including ‘new Italians’ who have become citizens and those living here irregularly – not the 9 per cent that is usually cited. But the figure that matters most for the future is that of young people under 30, among whom the proportion of those of foreign origin is around 22–25 per cent nationally and over 30 per cent in urban areas of central and northern Italy. This is a change that warrants public debate.