New data from the Italian national statistics bureau, ISTAT, released earlier in the week showed that by 2050, over one third of the population of Italy, the third-largest country in the EU, will be over 65. Last year that number was estimated at about 25 percent.

According to the report, the ratio of those within the age range to work (15-64) vs the population of those in the age range to not work, (0-14 or 65 and above), “will decrease from about three to two in 2022 to about one to one in 2050.”

Italy is facing major challenges from population decline and the aging of the population, which it is predicted will lead to an inevitable fall in economic productivity and inceased welfare costs, in a nation which already spends more on its pensions than any other nation in the 38-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

According to the statistics agency, it is forecast the population of Italy will fall to 54.4 million by 2050, down from 59 million in 2022, when new births hit a historic low, below 400,000.

According to the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, one possible solution to the demographic slump in Italy and the rest of the EU, could be increasing immigration. Her government has also promised more financial aid to families which are seeking to have children.

In the coming decade, the school-age population of Italy will fall by one million due to plummeting birth rates and a continuing brain drain, according to energy minister Guiseppe Valditar, how has referred to the situation as “alarming.“