Italy’s population has fallen and aged further, ISTAT said in a report this week.
The national statistics agency said that 59,641,488 people resided in Italy at the end of 2019, down by around 175,000 with respect to December 31, 2018.
The population at the end of last year was roughly in line with that of 2011.
But since then the average age of the population has risen from 43 to 45.
ISTAT said the ratio of over-65s to under-15s has increased to 180%.
The agency said the highest educational qualification for over half of the population, 50.1%, was a middle-school diploma or less.
It said 13.9% of the population were graduates.
ISTAT said that number of foreign nationals living in Italy had risen by 43,480 in 2019 to cross the five-million mark at 5,039,637.
It said the number of foreign nationals residing in Italy had increased by 3.7 million between 2001 and 2019.
Main Photo: People during coronavirus pandemic in Piazza Navona, Rome, Italy. EPA-EFE/ANSA/MASSIMO PERCOSSI
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