Population Growth and Fertility Rate in Italy

Population Geographers, have traditionally been concerned with the analysis of trend and pattern of growth in world population. Due to lack of reliable date on size of population during early time rendered their task very difficult. The first census operation begins in nineteenth and late at the middle of twentieth century in a country like Europe. But several countries are left out without conducting census. (Hassan, 2005). Two hundred year ago world population was just over 1 billion, since than the number of people in the planet grew more than 7 fold to 7.7 billion in 2019. According to worldometer elaboration of the latest united nation data, the Italy population is 60,48 million where Italy population is equivalent to 0.78% of the total world population and it ranked at 23 in the list if countries. Causes of population growth is due to decrease in fertility rate, increase in mortality rate and migration.

Decrease in fertility rate is one of the causes that effect the population growth in Italy. The latest indicator shows that death rate is exceeding the birth rate; where birth rate is 1,353 per day. The population growth decrease from 0.63% to -0.13% from the year 1960 to 2019, it is mainly due to lack of confident in the future’s economy and parents are concerned that they would not be able to have resources needed to raise their children. Declining fertility rate is in combined with life expectancy, where there is more of old citizen in the country, due to high life expectancy of old people, there will be biggest demographic problem in future because the older people who have more life expectancy will need more of medical care and there will be more economic problem because of decrease in fertility rate there will be no much of young people to pay pensions and early cares and also there will be family problem because no one want to take care of older citizen. According to financial time the birth rate has fallen to 1.32 children per women, where minimum birth rate needed of 2.1 children per women in order to maintain the stable population over the time. Family size has been shrinking in the industrialized world for decades and in Italy the decline of fertility rate has become dramatic, since a generation age, Italian mother commonly have more than four children but now it has decline to an average less than two and decline in fertility rate will lead to economic crisis in the country (livesay, 2019). The number of birth rate is declining and is expected to decline even further in the future because there will be fewer women in Italian population at reproductive age. Low fertility rate is due to the transition towards later birth, with a women average age of first birth at around 30.6 years and among those women born in 1970, the 21 percents of women does not have child (policy responses to low fertility, 2015).

The statistic represents the fertility rates in Italy from 2010 to 2019. According to study result, the fertility rate is decreased in selected period. Where Italian women had a child of an average of 1.46% in 2010 and 1.29% child as on 2019. Tables show that there is decline in fertility rate of 0.17% in past 10 years.

Increase in mortality rate led to decrease in population growth in Italy. On 19th February 2016 the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) shown the 2015 mortality data reporting 9.1% excess mortality as compared to 2014, this corresponding to 54,000 excess deaths and representing highest report mortality rate. In 2019 death rate of Italy was 10.6% per 1000 people. Death rate of Italy increased from 9.9% per 1,000 people in 1970 to 10.6% per 1000 people in 2019 at an average annual rate of 0.14%. Increase in mortality rate is due to high life expectancy where there is higher portion of older people; maximum population in Italy is above the age of 65, some diseases, child under the age of 5 died due infectious disease and recently due to coronavirus. The population is expected to decline over next 3 decades as the country is already has a death rate that exceeds its birth rate along with negative migration. The latest indictors show 1,673 deaths per day, compared to just 1,353 births per day. It is a mortality rate of child who is below the age of 5 from the 18th to 21st century. In 2011, 2,084 children under five years old died in Italy where in 1887, the number of death rate is 399, 50 in this (1887-2011) period, the corresponding mortality rate correspondingly drop from 347 deaths per 1,000 live births of 4. At the end of 1800 most of the child died due to infectious disease. In 2011, 72% of child deaths were caused by conditions that had their origin in the fetal or parental period. (Frova, 2014). Recently coronavirus had has killed more number of population in Italy within three weeks than in chain, it is mainly because of older people.

This represents the statistics of Italian death rate from 2012-2018. Since the beginning of first twenty-first century, the number of death rate in Italy remains constant but in 2018 the death reaches to10.5 per 1,000 inhabitants.

Migration is one of the aspects that effect the population growth in Italy. Most of the immigrant citizen were staying in Italy without the permit and were not entitled to have regular work and even the people with permit do not have a proper job. During the 1970s Italy changed from being a country of mass emigration to one of mass immigration. The employments data are scarce but indicates around two-thirds are involved in low grade services sector activities (king, 1993). Italy had experienced mass emigration from the end of the 19th century through the 1960s with nearly 750,000 Italians emigration per year from 1898 to 1914 and today about 5 million Italian born people live abroad, which effect the population growth of the country. By the late 1970s, however, Italy begins to attract a great deal of foreign immigration. It is estimated that more than 5 million foreign resident in Italy today, which accounts for 7.5% of the total population and also around 500,000 child born in Italy from the foreign nationals. There is a case of illegal immigration to the country which has been increased by 43% in 2016, according to estimation. Migrant from undeveloped countries started to enter Italy by mid 1970s, but the migrant inflow became important only from the second half of 1980s which has been nearly to100, 000 people by the years. The immigration population has been distributed to different region where 59.5% settled in northern part of the country, 25.4% in central and 15.1% in southern region. The child born from foreign mothers in Italy were 102,000 in 2012, 99,000 in 2013 and 97,000 in 2014.

In conclusion, Italy has a large economy and a population of 60.48 million, concentrated on relatively in small territory with strong disparities. Over the past few decades there is decrease in population growth rate which is due to decrease in birth rate, increase in death rate and increase in emigration of young people to other European countries in search of job opportunities . The rapid growth in population determined as achieving economic and social progress and to sustainable management of the natural resources base. In order to balance the population growth there should equal birth and death ratr but in Italy the death rate exceeds birth so there is decline in population growth. And also Italy has more of old people than a young people.

Reference

1. BMJ. (2013, september 18). Monitoring excess mortality. Fertility rate in italy 20-2019. (2020, mar 4).
2. Frova, L. (2014, January 10). The Italian child mortality:a statistics analysis from the18th to 21st, century.
3. Hassan, M. A. (2005). population geography. Prem Rawat. Infant mortality rate un italy 2018. (2020, jan 28).
4. King, R. (1993). Recent immigration to Italy: Character, causes and consequences. Geojournal, 30 (3), 238-292.
5. Livesay, C. (2019, nov 25). In italy, rising anxiety over falling birth rate.