That Italy is an increasingly old country with fewer inhabitants. On December 15 they were released the results of the third edition of the Permanent Census of Population and Housing, carried out in autumn 2021. The purpose of the Census is to count the Italian population and its socio-economic and structural characteristics, which represents the official public and legal information base used in political decisions and international comparisons. Here are five numbers we need to take into account.
59.030.133
How many are we in Italy? The census population in Italy as at 31 December 2021 amounts to 59,030,133 residents, down by 0.3% compared to 2020 (-206,080 individuals). The decrease in population mainly affects central Italy (-0.5%) and northern Italy (-0.4% for both the north-west and north-east), it is more contained in southern Italy (-0. 2%) and is minimal in the Islands (just 3 thousand units less).
46
The growing average age. Ours is an increasingly old country. The average age rose by three years compared to 2011 (from 43 to 46 years). Campania continues to be the youngest region (average age of 43.6 years) while Liguria is confirmed as the oldest (49.4 years)”.
5.4
Few children and many elderly people. The aging of the Italian population is even more evident in comparison with past censuses. In 2021, for every child there are 5.4 elderly people against less than one elderly person for every child in 1951 (3.8 in 2011). The old-age index (ratio between the population aged 65 and over and that aged less than 15) has significantly increased and continues to grow, from 33.5% in 1951 to 187.6% in 2021 (148.7% in 2001).
701.346
Deaths in 2021. The impact of the number of deaths from Covid-19 on the demographic trend in 2021 is still high: the total number of deaths (701,346), although down on the previous year (almost 39,000 fewer deaths), remains significantly higher than the 2015-2019 average (+8.6%).
36.3%
Italians with diploma. In the last 10 years the number of illiterates, people who can read and write but have not completed a regular course of study and those with elementary and middle school certificates have systematically decreased. The most significant share of the population, equal to 36.3%, has a diploma (more than 5 percentage points more than in 2011). Between 2011 and 2021 illiterates halved (from 1.1% to 0.5%), people who did not continue their studies after the first cycle of primary school decreased and university graduates increased (from 11.2% to 15.0%) and PhDs (from 0.3% to 0.5%). Territorially, graduates are 17.2% in the Centre, 15.3% in the North-West, 14.9% in the North-East, 13.8% in the South and 13% in the Islands. The highest shares of low educational qualifications are instead found in the South. With 19.1%, Lazio is the region with the highest incidence of graduates and PhDs (0.8%) which is contrasted by the Puglia (12.9% and 0.3%), like Valle D’Aosta/Vallée d’Aoste, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily
One more thing. Rome is the largest municipality with 2,749,031 residents, Morterone (in the province of Lecco) the smallest (with just 31 inhabitants). The decrease in population is much more limited in the municipalities of the 5-20 thousand inhabitants class and in the class of up to 5 thousand inhabitants (which together represent 70% of Italian municipalities). In the 44 municipalities with over 100 thousand inhabitants, only 5 gain population, for the remaining 39 there is a decrease compared to the 2020 census of about 115 thousand residents.
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