A gorgeous Italian island has seen a drop in population of 40 percent since 2002, with Italy as a whole having the fewest percentage of people aged 18-34 in all of Europe.
The national statistics agency Istat found via survey that the age group had dropped by three million, threatening the country’s ability to sustain its workforce.
Prime minister Giorgia Meloni is closely monitoring the nation’s population dip, which dropped by 393,000 last year to just under 59 million.
The prime minister has rejected the need for more migrants to replenish the workforce, instead announcing measures to increase the birthrate.
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“We are already seeing the impact on the labour force, just when we need workers to pay the taxes to cover pensions as Italians live longer,” said Alessandro Rosina, a demographer at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.
The drop in births has been happening for a generation, new figures from Istat show, with Italy being the first nation where over-65s outnumber under-15s in the 1990s. By 2050, the most common age for Italians will be 75.
“Now over-65s outnumber under-25s. The low birth rate 20 years ago means there are fewer 20-year-olds around today,” Rosina said.
“Until the mid-70s, Italy was above the European average for birth rates, then fell to among the lowest in the world by the end of the 1980s, and has not improved since.”
In 2021, the 18-34 age group was just 17.5 percent of the population compared to the EU average of 19.6 percent.
The falling birthrate has affected some areas worse than others, with the population in Sardinia falling by 40 percent since 2002.
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Istat’s research found that, as well as there being fewer young people, that group are living at home longer, marrying later and having fewer children.
In southern Italy, 71.5 percent of those aged 18-34 live with their parents, compared to the EU average of 49 percent.
Southern Italian men are marrying later, with the average man being 36 today, up from 32 in 2004.
The report also warned that the rest of Europe was not far behind, with the area losing 16.6 million people aged 18-34 from 2001 to 2021, causing a population drop from 104 million to 87 million.
Rosina said European countries where couples are having less than two children are “following in Italy’s footsteps.”
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