Italy records 369,944 births in 2024, lowest since unification in 1861, as TFR falls to 1.18 for the 16th consecutive record year

Summary

Italy's national statistics institute ISTAT confirmed that 369,944 babies were born in 2024, a 2.6% decline from 2023 and the lowest annual birth total since Italian unification in 1861. The total fertility rate fell to 1.18 children per woman, a record low, down from 1.20 in 2023 and far below the 2.1 replacement rate. Italy recorded 281,000 more deaths than births in 2024, shrinking the population by 37,000 to 58.93 million. Since 2014, Italy's population has fallen by almost 1.9 million. As of January 1, 2025, the average age was 46.8 years, with those aged 65 and over making up 24.7% of the total population. Preliminary data for January-July 2025 show a further 6.3% decline in newborns, suggesting 2025 will set yet another record. This is the 16th consecutive year of birth record lows despite successive Italian governments, including Prime Minister Meloni's, pledging to make the birth rate a national priority.

The split

Italian government and conservative media framed the crisis as a cultural failure requiring pro-family fiscal incentives, state childcare expansion, and measures to reduce the cost of raising children. They also pointed to emigration of young Italians as a compounding factor and called for policies to attract Italian-origin diaspora back to the country. Italian economists and demographers argued that the fiscal transfers being contemplated, including 'baby bonuses', are too small to change reproductive decisions in a country where childcare costs, housing prices, and youth precarious employment are the dominant structural barriers to family formation. Immigration advocates noted that immigrant-origin women in Italy have higher fertility rates than Italy-born women and that managed immigration remains the most reliable short-term buffer for population and workforce decline.

By the numbers

• 369,944: births in Italy in 2024 (lowest since unification in 1861)
• 2.6%: decline from 379,890 births in 2023
• 1.18: total fertility rate in 2024 (record low; replacement rate is 2.1)
• 281,000: excess deaths over births in 2024
• 37,000: population decline in 2024 (to 58.93 million)
• 1.9 million: population lost since 2014
• 46.8 years: average age in Italy as of January 1, 2025
• 24.7%: share of population aged 65+ as of January 1, 2025
• 6.3%: decline in newborns January-July 2025 versus same period 2024

Why it matters

Italy's Italy Demography trajectory is one of the most extreme in the OECD and has concrete immediate effects on the Italian economy: its public pension system faces growing actuarial deficits as the ratio of contributors to beneficiaries narrows, its healthcare system is managing an ageing patient cohort with a workforce that is also ageing and shrinking, and rural and southern communities are entering depopulation spirals that are difficult to reverse once they begin. Italy also has the largest public debt in the eurozone in absolute terms and the second-largest relative to GDP; the demographic contraction directly constrains its fiscal capacity to service that debt.

What to watch

• ISTAT's full 2025 vital statistics release for the final birth and fertility numbers
• Whether the Meloni government's 2026 demographic package includes structurally significant childcare funding or remains at the level of symbolic bonus payments
• Whether Italy's immigration inflows from North Africa, South Asia, and Eastern Europe are revised upward to partially offset natural population decline
• The 2026 EU cohesion funding discussions and how Italy's demographic data affects allocation formulas