Culture Italy's population stops shrinking after 12 years, thanks to migration - Bee numbers stabilized by wasps

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By Valentina Consiglio
March 31, 20265:38 AM CDT
Updated March 31, 2026

Summary

• Resident population held steady at around 59 million
• Net immigration at 296,000 last year
• Without migrants, population would have shrunk by 297,000
• Fertility rate down to 1.14 children per woman

ROME, March 31 (Reuters) - Italy's population has stabilised after 12 ‌years of decline, with immigration almost entirely offsetting a shrinking number of births, while life expectancy continues to rise, national statistics agency ISTAT said on Tuesday.

Preliminary data showed the resident population stood at 58.94 million on January 1 this year, virtually unchanged from a year earlier, ISTAT said in its annual ⁠demographic report.

"Italy remains a country where only very positive net migration can offset a largely negative natural change and where the population continues to age," the statistics bureau said.

Without a sustained inflows of migrants the population will resume shrinking, intensifying long‑term pressures on the labour market and public finances, it added.
The influx of immigrants has taken place under the right-wing government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has taken a tough line on undocumented migrants while also increasing work visas for non-EU citizens.

BIRTHS DROP TO A ‌NEW RECORD ⁠LOW​

Births dropped to 355,000 in 2025, down 3.9% from the previous year to a new record low since the country's unification in 1861, while deaths held broadly steady at 652,000, yielding a negative balance of close to 300,000 people.

Fertility fell further to an average of ⁠1.14 children per woman, among the lowest levels in Europe and well below the replacement rate of 2.1, reflecting delayed parenthood and a shrinking pool of potential parents.

Net immigration stood at ⁠296,000, with arrivals from abroad reaching 440,000, while emigration fell sharply to 144,000, the lowest level recorded in the past decade.
The foreign resident population rose by 188,000 ⁠to 5.56 million.

Life expectancy increased further after the COVID-19 pandemic years, reaching 81.7 years for men and 85.7 for women, placing Italy among the longest-living countries in the European Union, ISTAT said.

Reporting by Valentina Consiglio, editing by Gavin Jones

 

[Chunky Salsa]

How horrifying.

 

[W00K #17]

What great news!

I'm going to celebrate by having a traditional Italian tagine cooked dish for dinner.

 

[JohnnyG]

Without a sustained inflows of migrants ... intensifying long‑term pressures on the labour market and public finances

Do they really think anyone still believes this lie, that gorillions of welfare dependents, criminals, and fraudsters somehow help the country's financial situation, instead of simply adding more to the burden on taxpaying citizens?

 

[Alligator Alcatraz]

Inmigration seems like the only solution when young Italians arent given the resources they need to feel safe and secure enough to build a family.

No animal births children out of nowhere besides in extreme survival circumstances. Animals always build a shelter beforehand, a nest, some structure to house themselves and the younglings. The nest is built somewhere they know will have plentiful resources for themselves and the young, away from predators. For some reason, human governments have trouble understanding this. Young people are still making relationships and fucking, but they wont make babies until they have security. Young people do not want to have children when they're still living with parents in cramped multigenerational homes.

I recall Sicily had multiple international campaigns where they would give free land in the countrysides and residency to anyone who offered to live there. I dont know if it was successful. Probably not.

Needless to say, immigration has one outcome.

 

[Hatewerfer]

With that hard right evil racist fascist Meloni in charge I bet it's all aryan immigration, after all the news told me she was a racist fascist. Oh wait nevermind she's bringing in the swarthiest niggers from niggerhell, muslim arabs and pajeets. Great. Guess the only solution for the Italians is to vote harder next time.

 

[Loose Goose]

Do they really think anyone still believes this lie, that gorillions of welfare dependents, criminals, and fraudsters somehow help the country's financial situation, instead of simply adding more to the burden on taxpaying citizens?

Looking up Italy's growth figures, it seems they have been completely stagnant (except two Covid years, which had a massive drop and a rebound). So they are turning Rome, Florence, Naples, Cinquecento and Quattrocento into Mogadishu for nothing. Not even the line goes up.

Also a regular reminder that Giorgia Meloni was talked up as this terrifying direct successor to Mussolini who'd be machinegunning crying boat migrants into the sea, and she ended up making the problem even worse.

 

[Peeing In The Shower]

They'll be pining for the Ostrogoths before long.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

But the Great Replacement is totally a conspiracy theory!

 

[deleuzeon]

You can't rebuild your civilization with other people's children.

 

[Fount of BadSpeak]

The influx of immigrants has taken place under the right-wing government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni

Remember when this bitch was promising that she wouldn't replace Whites with evil shitskins? I 'member. We have already seen multiple "right wing" governments do the complete opposite of what they promised already, including Meloni's, but I think when we see Reform, Vox, AfD, and other "alternatives" do the same White Replacement, then you might see things get interesting for a change. In the meantime, you are not going to vote your way out of ethnic cleansing.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

Reminder, the kikes were planning this before the wars to create the rapefugees even began. They planned it openly, and made official briefs about it. Two birds, one semitic stone.

Iudea Delenda Est.

Remember when this bitch was promising that she wouldn't replace Whites with evil shitskins? I 'member. We have already seen multiple "right wing" governments do the complete opposite of what they promised already, including Meloni's, but I think when we see Reform, Vox, AfD, and other "alternatives" do the same White Replacement, then you might see things get interesting for a change. In the meantime, you are not going to vote your way out of ethnic cleansing.

It's almost like the two-party system (specially when both sides are owned by kike bankers) is a bitter deception. I wonder who first said those words?

 

[Audit]

Do they really think anyone still believes this lie,

Yes, liberals actually do believe this unironically. It's a mandatory part of their religion under the tenet of Tabula Rosa. No innate difference in persons can possibly exist regardless of evidence to the contrary. It's possibly the single most important unpinning concept to them even beyond nullification of social restrictions on individual behavior.

 

[Wujime]

It's almost like the two-party system (specially when both sides are owned by kike bankers) is a bitter deception. I wonder who first said those words?

It's not a two party system but it doesn't work the same. Especially when politicians who try to avoid illegal immigration get prosecuted and persecuted by the very legal system they should be in control of.

The truth is that Italy is a nation which is fucked from a constitutional level because the constitution was half written by catholic bootlickers and half by the remnants of a failed bolshevik revolution who were seething they lost the opportunity to give rise to their revolution because America and not Russia helped "liberating most of it". But here people think having the constitution point out you gotta be a wageslave for the rest of your life makes it a crown jewel of the world's legal documents. This place is a shithole.

 

[Look At You]

In other words. Warm bodies are up, but the Italian population is still down.

 

[Pentex]

Italy remains a country where only very positive net migration can offset a largely negative natural change and where the population continues to age," the statistics bureau said.

All the more proof that bureaucrats need an occasional old school Roman decimation to keep them honest/fearful.

Without a sustained inflows of migrants the population will resume shrinking, intensifying long‑term pressures on the labour market and public finances, it added.

Maybe an economic model of infinite growth on a finite space/resources is ill-conceived?

 

[Korpon]

Genuinely depressing to witness

 

[Crex Crex]

The truth is that Italy is a nation which is fucked from a constitutional level because the constitution was half written by catholic bootlickers and half by the remnants of a failed bolshevik revolution who were seething they lost the opportunity to give rise to their revolution because America and not Russia helped "liberating most of it". But here people think having the constitution point out you gotta be a wageslave for the rest of your life makes it a crown jewel of the world's legal documents. This place is a shithole.

You read my mind. The Italian constitution is dogshit and our political class and it's niggercattle followers worship it like it's a second bible. Fuck 1946, death to the Republic.

 

[Magicicada_septendecula]

Do they really think anyone still believes this lie, that gorillions of welfare dependents, criminals, and fraudsters somehow help the country's financial situation, instead of simply adding more to the burden on taxpaying citizens?

Of course, more warm bodies = GDP go up... somehow.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Inmigration seems like the only solution when young Italians arent given the resources they need to feel safe and secure enough to build a family.

No animal births children out of nowhere besides in extreme survival circumstances. Animals always build a shelter beforehand, a nest, some structure to house themselves and the younglings. The nest is built somewhere they know will have plentiful resources for themselves and the young, away from predators. For some reason, human governments have trouble understanding this. Young people are still making relationships and fucking, but they wont make babies until they have security. Young people do not want to have children when they're still living with parents in cramped multigenerational homes.

I recall Sicily had multiple international campaigns where they would give free land in the countrysides and residency to anyone who offered to live there. I dont know if it was successful. Probably not.

Needless to say, immigration has one outcome.

Ver archivo adjunto 8805767

You could give any Euro 10M$ and a 10/10 wife and he would just live in his hedonism with some other excuse why he can't having kids due to climate/politics. At best having a single one which he will just give to his foreign maid to raise.

If humans needed the perfect environment for kids, it wouldn't be Africa and India that have positive growth rate.