The Italian population will continue to decrease and age at least until 2080. According to the latest forecasts from Istat (“Forecasts of the resident population, families, and labor force base”), by 2050 the residents will drop to 55 million (they were 58.9 million at the beginning of 2025) while by 2080 the total will amount to 45.8 million people, over 13 million less than in 2025. Italians will also be increasingly elderly: the percentage of people of working age (from 15 to 64 years) will further decrease, going from 63.4% recorded on January 1, 2025, to 55.3% in 2050. However, the increase in labor participation rates will partly mitigate the effects of the population decline.
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Declining residents
According to the Istat report, the drastic decrease in the resident population “represents an almost certain outcome: already in the medium term none of the scenarios considered foresee a return to current population levels and, in the long term, the decline is confirmed in all possible demographic evolutions.”
The population decrease will become increasingly marked over the years. If, in the short term (2025-2030), the decline will be milder, with an average annual rate of change of -0.1%, in the medium term (2030-2050) the contraction is destined to intensify, with an average annual rate of -0.3 percent. In the long term (2050-2080), finally, the decline will accelerate further, with a pace of -0.6% on average per year.
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Territorial differences
The phenomenon, however, will not have a homogeneous intensity throughout the peninsula. In the short term, the North even shows a growth trend, increasing from 27.5 million residents in 2025 to 27.7 million in 2030. Starting from this date, the trend will reverse and the population will drop to 27.2 million in 2050 and 24.2 million in 2080. Despite the overall decrease in residents, the North still maintains a relatively more favorable dynamic compared to the rest of the country.
Looking at Central Italy, instead, a slight decline is already noticeable in the short term. Between 2025 and 2030 the population will decrease by 40 thousand units. Between 2030 and 2050 the decrease will accelerate and residents will reach 11 million. In the long term, it will drop even further to 9.3 million.
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