The picture on Italy's demographic future shows a sharply decreasing resident population. According to the "median" forecast scenario, it will go from 59 million on January 1, 2022 to 58.1 million in 2030, 54.4 million in 2050 to 45.8 million in 2080. This was stated by ISTAT President Francesco Maria Chelli. "Progressive depopulation will affect the whole territory, albeit with differences between the North, the Center and the South, with a more pronounced decline in the latter distribution," he explained. "The North could shrink by just 276,000 by 2050 (from 27.4 to 27.1 million), while the population of the South could lose 3.6 million by 2050 (from 19.9 to 16.3 million). Under none of the forecast assumptions considered - even under the most favorable scenarios - will the current gap between births and deaths be restored to equilibrium. Indeed, the increase in average reproductive levels will not be able to produce a parallel increase in births because of the increasingly significant decrease in women of childbearing age, who represent the country's reproductive potential," he noted.
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