Births in 2022 fell below the 400,000 mark to 393,000.
Federica Pascale, writing in Euractive »
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (Istat), as of 1 January 2023, there are about 58 million Italian residents, representing a 3% decrease compared to the previous year. In 2021, the trend was -3.5% and -6.7% in 2020, mainly attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. The population decline is particularly pronounced in the south of the country (-6.3%).
The causes can be traced to an excess of deaths (713,000) over births (393,000) not offset by migration movements with foreign countries, Istat explains.
People over 65 account for 24.1% of the total population, and there are 22,000 over 100-year-olds, while the population of foreign citizens stands at about five million (+3.9% compared to 2022), residing mainly in the north.