In 1964In Italy, more than a million children were born. Hospitals were full, schools were multiplying, a country that was literally growing before everyone's eyes. Today, those cradles are empty. 60 years later, in 2024 we have dropped to 370 thousand births, with a fertility rate of 1,18 children per woman: the lowest ever recorded. This isn't a passing anomaly. It's the new normal of demographic decline.
For decades, governments have tried to reverse the trend with baby bonuses, parental leave, and free daycare. France spent 4% of its annual GDP on them. The result? In 2023, it recorded its lowest birth rate since World War II. The genie doesn't go back into the bottle. The demographic decline is irreversible. But perhaps it won't be the catastrophe we fear, if we learn to adapt.
The numbers that leave no escape
The data ISTAT of February 2025 confirm what demographers and economists have been repeating for years: the Italian population is beginning a structural demographic decline that no policy seems able to stopBirths in the first two months of 2025 fell by 8,3% compared to the same period in 2024. The resident population fell to 58,9 million, down 12 compared to the beginning of the year. By 2050, according to official projectionsItaly will lose another 3,2 million inhabitants. By 2080, those over 65 will increase from the current 17% to 30% of the total population.
We are not alone. A study published in Nature in August 2025 analyzed global trends: by 2050, More than three-quarters of the world's countries will have fertility rates below the replacement level of 2,1 children per woman. South Korea is already at 0,75. Japan has been losing population since 2010. Even the United States, which for decades compensated with immigration, could see its population decline for the first time in history by 2025.
Il Congressional Budget Office An American estimates that the ratio of working-age population (25-64) to retirees (over 65) will increase from 2,8 to 1 in 2025 to 2,2 to 1 by 2055. Simply put: fewer workers to support more seniors. The math is simple, but the consequences are not.
Why incentives aren't enough (and never will be enough)
The mistake is to think that simply paying more is enough. France has built the most generous family welfare system in Europe: subsidized daycare from infancy to preschool, tax deductions for large families, monthly allowances for each child, and pension bonuses for those with three or more. Annual cost: between 3,5% and 4% of GDP. Estimated result: an increase of just 0,1-0,2 children per woman. In 2023, France recorded its lowest number of births since the end of World War II.
The problem is deeper. As he explains Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, economist at the University of Pennsylvania quoted in the study of Nature,
“There's been an absolutely incredible decline in fertility, much faster than anyone predicted. And it's happening in countries you never imagined.”
It's not just an economic issue. It's cultural, social, even biological. The average age of Italian mothers has risen to 32,6. Young people are forming fewer couples, having less sex, and putting everything off. As we have reported in the past, this is a global phenomenon that no isolated policy can reverse.
The inconvenient truth is this: right now, No country in the world where fertility has fallen steadily below 2,1 has ever returned above that threshold.. Never.
Demographic decline and its direct consequences: how to adapt to an aging world
If we can't reverse the demographic decline (and barring miracles, I don't see how we could), we can at least manage it. There are three levers, and they all require political choices that no one really wants to make.
First lever: tax reform. An aging world costs. A lot.IMF It estimates that rich countries will need to spend 21% of their annual GDP on pensioners by 2050, up from 16% in 2015. In Italy, without reforms, both social security and the healthcare system for the elderly will run out of their primary funding by 2032, resulting in automatic cuts of up to 24%. Among the possible solutions? Slowing the growth of pensions for the highest incomes and raising taxes on consumption rather than labor. No one wants to hear it, but it's a simple matter.
Second lever: immigration. More foreign workers means more taxpayers and more consumption. 46% of companies in the Fortune 500 It was founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. But immigration only works if managed with regular checks and serious integration policies. The mistake is to open everything up without filters or to close everything down out of fear. We need fair, demand-driven systems that attract (and do so seriously, not simply to exploit) those who fill real gaps in the labor market.
Third lever: investments in productivity. If there are fewer workers, they must be better. More continuous training, more scientific research, more intelligent automation. A smaller workforce can support a larger economy only if it is better qualified and supported by technology.
Demographic decline, the future seems already written (but we can choose how to read it)
Demographic decline isn't a crisis. It's a condition. A bit like climate change: we can ignore it, deny it, hope it resolves itself. Or we can prepare. The difference between a country that collapses and one that adapts lies entirely in the choices we make today. Unpopular tax reforms. Courageous immigration policies. Massive investments in research and education.
The problem isn't that we'll have fewer children. It's that we continue to build systems designed for a growing population, when the reality is going in exactly the opposite direction. The world population will peak in 2084. and then it will start to decline. It is the first time since the Black Death of 1300.
Better to think about it today than to be unprepared tomorrow.
