If the world continues on a high-emissions pathway, by 2050, average annual temperatures in Italy could increase by as much as 2.4°C, making extreme weather events like the heat waves and wildfires the country is currently seeing even more frequent and severe. Climate may be a major factor in the decline!
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, migration to Italy reached unexpected and exceptional levels, and at the beginning of 2015, the foreign residents in the country exceeded 6 million, including regular and irregular ones (Blangiardo 2016). Italy attracted a large number of economic migrants from abroad in the first decade of the twenty-first century: the factors were the economic growth of the country and a demand for labor in family-care services specifically elder care as Italy has one of the oldest populations in Europe and smallest birth rates!
Their are many ethnic minorities who are part of Italy's migrant population many of whom would be considered white in the USA or Caucasian are not considered that in Italy! The question of the terms “Caucasian,” and “ethnicity” pertaining to ethnicities like Ukrainian, are rather, American. In any case, the term Caucasian refers to people from the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia; unless they have moved it, Ukraine is not in the Caucasus region. The inaccurate use in the USA of Caucasian to mean “white” is based on an old theory which was discredited in the rest of the world many years ago, and which is now only used in the USA. Albania, Morocco and Ukraine, which have been the largest non-EU countries of origin (‘third countries’) of migrant women in recent years: the most recent register data (December 31, 2018) show that they represent, respectively, 12.1%, 11.1% and 10.4% of the total amount of resident non-EU women in Italy.
Women from Albania are divergent according to the migration background: migrants show a lower propensity to have a second and a third child compared to stayers, approaching the non-migrant Italian pattern. The stayers and (above all) the migrants from Ukraine have a much lower propensity to experience the second and the third parity events. The dissimilarity between Ukrainian migrants and stayers is more significant for the first and the second child than it is for the third one, which is not surprising given the reduced size of this subgroup. Women from Morocco show a log-hazard that is particularly high for the third childbirth.
Italy's fertility rate is one of the lowest in Europe, with an average of 1.25 children per woman, which is much lower than the 2.1 children needed to maintain the population. In 2023, the fertility rate fell to below1.2 children per woman, which is the lowest number since 1861. This is a crisis that's getting worse and speeding up, and some experts predict that Italy's population could drop by 1 million before 2027. In 2021, there was a slight increase in fertility rate, with an average of 1.25 babies per woman because migrant populations were having more children. In 2023,despite counting migrant births the figure still diminished to 1.2 newborns!
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