Italy's births set to sink to a record low in 2026
ROME: Italy is set to suffer a further drop in the number of births this year to a historic low, aggravating the country’s demographic crisis, national statistics bureau ISTAT said on Wednesday.
Italy is on track to record its lowest number of births in 2026, intensifying the nation's demographic crisis, according to national statistics bureau ISTAT. The country saw just 355,772 births in 2025, the lowest total since unification in 1861, marking the 17th year of decline. In the first half of 2026 alone, newborns numbered just under 197,000, a 1.1 percent drop from the same period last year.
The fertility rate, indicative of average children per woman of child-bearing age, declined to 1.13 in the first seven months of 2026, down from the previous record low of 1.14. Despite Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's and her predecessors' promises to address the issue, no solution has emerged. ISTAT notes that in 2025, the average age of women giving birth for the first time was 32, consistent with the prior year.
Moreover, 44.1 percent of children were born to unmarried parents in 2025, up from 43.2 percent the previous year. The most popular names for Italian children born in 2025 were Sofia for girls and Leonardo for boys.
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