People pick their children up from the nursery in Cisternino, Italy February 13, 2025. REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo
ROME (Reuters) -Italy is set to suffer a further drop in the number of births this year to a new historical low, aggravating the country's demographic crisis, national statistics bureau ISTAT said on Tuesday.
Last year recorded just 370,000 new births, the lowest figure since Italy's unification in 1861, and the 16th year in a row in which the figure declined.
In the first seven months of 2025 the negative trend continued, with just under 198,000 newborns, down 6.3% from the same period of 2024, ISTAT said in a statement.
The fertility rate, measuring the average number of children born to each woman of child-bearing age, fell in January-July to 1.13, from last year's record low of 1.18, the agency added.
Italy's long-declining birth rate is considered a national emergency. But despite Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her predecessors' pledges to confront the issue, no one has been able to halt the drop.
In a separate report on Tuesday, ISTAT said the steady ageing of the population and the gradual rise in the retirement age will result in a progressively older workforce.
It said that by 2050 the share of people either working or looking for work in the 55-64 age group will rise to 70% from 61% last year, while in the 65-74 age group it will rise to 16% from 11%.
(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, editing by Alvise Armellini and Gavin Jones)
