Italy tomorrow: a smaller, more heterogeneous population with more differences.
The new projections of the country’s demographic future, updated to 2022, return trends that are difficult to dispute, albeit in a framework with some uncertainty. The resident population is decreasing: from 59 million on January 1, 2022 to 58.1 mln in 2030, to 54.4 mln in 2050 to 45.8 mln in 2080.
The ratio of working-age (15-64 years) to non-working-age individuals (0-14 and 65 years and older) will decrease from about three to two in 2022 to about one to one in 2050.
Even within a common background of aging, the structural differences between the North and the South of the country are amplified.
Households are increasing but with a smaller average number of members. Fewer couples with children, more couples without: by 2042 only one in four households will consist of a couple with children; more than one in five will have none.