An aging country, in which births continue to inexorably decline, people become mothers later and later and where the number of children per woman is at an all-time low. This is the photograph that comes from the latest data from Istat which, based on estimates from the State General Accounting Office, predicts an increase in the age requirement for the old-age pension to 68 years and 11 months in 2050 (from the current 67 years) and to 70 years in 2067.
In the coming decades the share of over 65s will increase, until it exceeds 1/3 of the population in 2050 (when it will be equal to 34.6%).
And in Italy fewer and fewer children are being had. The birth rate report shows that in 2024 births fell below 370 thousand (exactly 369,944) down by 2.6% on the previous year. A trend that seems to continue in the first months of 2025. According to provisional data relating to January-July, in fact, around 13 thousand fewer children were born compared to the same period in 2024 (-6.3%).
The regions where the decline is most intense are Abruzzo and Sardinia (with -10.2% and -10.1%). But there is not a negative trend throughout Italy. In Valle d’Aosta and in the autonomous provinces of Bolzano and Trento there was an increase in births of 5.5%, 1.9% and 0.6%. The average number of children per woman is falling, reaching an all-time low: in 2024 it stands at 1.18 (down from 2023 when it marked 1.20) and the provisional estimate for the first seven months of 2025 highlights a further decrease to 1.13.
Furthermore, women are becoming mothers later and later. In 2024 the average age at childbirth reaches 32.6 years, slightly up on the previous year (32.5), but up by almost three years compared to 1995. Limiting the analysis to first-borns only, women become mothers for the first time on average at almost 32 years of age (31.9) compared to 31.7 in 2023 and 28.1 years in 1995. The increase in the average age at childbirth is observed both among foreigners and Italians.
Age continues to be higher in the Center and North (33 and 32.7 years) compared to the South (32.3). Lazio, Basilicata and Sardinia are the regions with the highest delay (33.2 years in all three regions). And the tendency to have children out of wedlock is increasingly widespread among young people.
Despite an absolute reduction, the incidence of births to unmarried couples still continues to grow: 43.2% in 2024 (+0.8 percentage points on 2023 and +23.5 percentage points on 2008). The highest share is observed in the Center (49.6%), followed by the North (42.8%).
Among the regions, Umbria and Lazio stand out where more than half of children are born out of wedlock. However, the number of those born to parents in which at least one of the partners is foreign remains substantially stationary.
These births, which constitute 21.8% of the total, went from 80,942 in 2023 to 80,761. Since 2012, the last year in which an increase was observed compared to the previous year, the decrease has been over 27 thousand units. And the Istat data have raised political reactions. Senator Raffaella Paita, group leader in the Senate of Italia Viva, defines the picture as “dramatic”.
“After three years of government – he states – it is the most evident demonstration of the total absence of policies for the family”. For Marco Furfaro, responsible for combating inequality and welfare in the national secretariat of the Democratic Party and group leader in the Social Affairs Commission, “the Meloni government fills its mouth with words like ‘family’ and ‘birth rate’, but then does absolutely nothing for those who would like to create one”.
For Gigi De Palo, president of the Natality Foundation, «the profound demographic crisis that Italy is going through is confirmed. It is no longer an isolated signal, but a trend that puts the social and economic sustainability of our nation at risk.”