Steep downward trend in births continues in Italy as demographic crisis deepens.
There were 369,944 babies born in Italy in 2024, a 2.6 per cent decrease from the previous year, according to data released by national statistics agency ISTAT on Tuesday.
The number of births in Italy in 2024 is the lowest since records began in 1861, after Italian unification, with the figure falling for the 16th year in a row.
The downward trend has been advancing steadily since 2008, when the peak of births (576,000) in the 2000s was reached.
Preliminary data for the first seven months of 2025 shows this negative trend continuing, with a 6.3 per cent decline in newborns compared to the same period in 2024.
Fertility
The fertility rate – the average number of children per woman of child-bearing age – fell to a record low of 1.18 last year, down from 1.20 in 2023.
Provisional figures for January-July 2025 suggest a further drop to 1.13.
The data paints a picture of a steady decline in fertility: from 2.01 children per woman for the 1947 generation (the last to reach the so-called generational replacement threshold) to 1.44 for women born in 1975 (who turned 49 in 2024).
The decline in fertility per generation is accompanied by an increase in the number of women with no children.
This figure stood at 10 per cent for women born in 1947, however in the 1975 cohort, women without children represent almost a quarter of the total (23 per cent).
Factors
The ISTAT report stressed that the decline in births over the years is linked to the reduced number of potential parents, belonging to increasingly small generations born since the mid-1970s, when fertility began to decline.
Employment insecurity, particularly the prevalence of temporary work contracts, also has a heavy impact on Italy’s falling birth rate.
Non-Italian births
The decline is offset however by the relatively stable number of births to parents in which at least one of the partners is a foreigner.
These births, which make up 21.8 per cent of the total, went from 80,942 in 2023 to 80,761 last year.
The highest number of births in this category in 2024, to one or more non-Italian parents, were Romanian (10,532), Moroccan (9,448) and Albanian (9,115).
Top names
The most popular boy’s name among new parents in Italy continues to be Leonardo, retaining the top spot since 2018, followed by Edoardo and Tommaso.
For girls, the situation remains unchanged compared to 2023, with Sofia in first place, followed by Aurora and Ginevra.
Among the most popular names for boys born in Italy in 2024 to non-Italian parents are Rayan, Adam, Amir and Liam, while for girls the favourite names are Sofia, Sara and Amira.
Ageing population
Concurrent with the falling birth rate, Italy’s population continues to age.
As of 1 January 2025, the average age in Italy rose to 46.8 years, with individuals aged over 65 now accounting for nearly a quarter (24.7 per cent) of the total population.
The continuous decline in births, coupled with an ageing population, represents a major national challenge for Italy’s social and economic future.
