Giugno 2019 - Volume XXXVIII - numero 6
Medicina e società
1UOC di Neonatologia, Patologia e Terapia Intensiva Neonatale, Policlinico Umberto I,
Università di Roma La Sapienza
2Dipartimento per la Produzione Statistica, ISTAT
Indirizzo per corrispondenza: mario.decurtis@uniroma1.it
Key words: Birth rate, Fertility index, Infant mortality, Poverty
In Italy birth rate is significantly decreasing. In 2018 449,000 babies were born, namely 128,000 less with respect to 2008. In 2018 the fertility index reached the value of 1.32 children per woman and today women in Italy have their first child at the age of 31.1 years. The fall of birth rate is mainly due to the drop in the children of Italian parents. The foreigners residing in Italy, though they are only the 8.7% of the population, remarkably contribute to support Italian birth rate. In the last few years also in Italy there has been a significant increase in the children born from multiple pregnancies that today are about 3% of all the newborns with an increase in the preterm newborns. A relevant fall in infant mortality has been also observed but with remarkable differences between Italian regions. Also the number of families who live in poverty has significantly increased. In 2017 families in absolute poverty were 1,778,000. The birth of a child worsens the level of poverty. Therefore, urgent measures to favour birth rate and contrast poverty are needed.
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