Italy’s birth rate last year had hit a record low and this year’s statistics comes to no surprise as it has decreased a great deal.
According to Istat (Italy’s national statistics agency), they recorded it’s lowest number of births last year at 420,000 making this the lowest number of births in 150 years.
For 2020, Istat has estimated the birth rate to drop to 408,000 births and only 393,000 in 2021.
Istat chief, Gian Carlo Blangiardo presented these statistics to lawmakers on Tuesday and had the pandemic to blame.
“The climate of fear and uncertainty as well as financial difficulties caused by recent events will have a negative effect on the fertility of Italian couples,” he said.
“The demographic recession that has hit Italy since 2015 is significant and translates into a real collapse that has no equivalent in Italian history, except if we go back to 1917-18, with World War I and the dramatic effects of the Spanish flu,” Blangiardo said.
Sources:
[Unsplash]
[Medicalxpress]
