Italy facts of the day

About 156,000 Italians left the country last year for Germany, Spain, the UK and elsewhere, a 36.5 per cent increase over the number who emigrated in 2023.

At just under 191,000, the total number of people who left Italy in 2024 — including 35,000 long-term foreign residents, mainly Romanians returning home — was at the highest level in a quarter of a century, according to Italy’s official statistics agency, Istat.

Italy’s population decline is among the most acute in Europe, after decades of plummeting birth rates. At present, about a quarter of Italy’s 59mn people are over the age of 65, while just 12 per cent of the population are children aged 14 and under. The working age population is forecast to drop by another 5mn people by 2040.

Here is the full FT story.