Demographics of Italy

Demographics of Italy
Population pyramid of Italy as of 2022
Population	58,921,658 (31 October 2023)[1]
Growth rate	-0.30% (2022)
Birth rate	6.7 births/1,000 population (2022)
Death rate	12.1 deaths/1,000 population (2022)
Life expectancy	82 years (2020)
• male	79.7 years
• female	84.4 years
Fertility rate	1.24 children born/parent (2022)
Infant mortality rate	3.6 deaths/1,000 live births (2015)[2]
Net migration rate	1.3 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2020)
Age structure
0–14 years	12.89%
15–64 years	63.57%
65 and over	23.54%
Nationality
Nationality	noun: Italian(s) adjective: Italian
Major ethnic	Italians
Language
Spoken	Italian, others

Demographic features of the population of Italy include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects.

At the beginning of 2022, Italy had an estimated population of 58.9 million. Its population density, at 197 inhabitants per square kilometre (510/sq mi), is higher than that of most Western European countries. However, the distribution of the population is very uneven: the most densely populated areas are the Po Valley (with about a third of the country's population) in northern Italy and the metropolitan areas of Rome and Naples in central and southern Italy, while large rural areas are very sparsely populated, like the plateaus of Basilicata, the Alps and Apennines highlands, and the island of Sardinia.

The population of the country almost doubled during the 20th century, but the pattern of growth was extremely uneven due to large-scale internal migration from the rural South to the industrial cities of the North, due to the Italian economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, after centuries of net emigration, since the 1980s Italy has experienced large-scale immigration for the first time in modern history. Italian government data, in its annual report for 2019, estimated the number of foreign nationals residing within Italy, including immigrants, at about 5.234 million.^[3] Due to such large-scale immigration to the country, particularly from the early 2000s to 2014, the population peaked at 60.79 million. Since then, decreasing migration, a continuously falling birth rate, and continuous aging have led to a sharp decrease in the Italian population.

High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1970s, after which they started to dramatically decline, leading to rapid population aging. At the end of the 2000s decade, one in five Italians was over 65 years old.^[4] Italy experienced a short-term growth in birth rates.^[5] The total fertility rate temporarily rose from an all-time low of 1.18 children per woman in 1995 to 1.46 in 2010.^[6] Since then, fertility rates have resumed their decline, to reach a low of 1.24 in 2022.^[7]

Since the revision of the Lateran Treaty in 1984, Italy has no official religion, although it continues to recognize the role the Catholic Church plays in Italian society. In 2017, 78% of the population identified as Catholic, 15% as non-believers or atheists, 2% as other Christians and 6% adhered to other religions.^[8]