On Sunday, Pope Francis decried Italy’s declining birthrate, saying that it posed a threat to the country’s future.
The national statistics office said this month that births in Italy fell for the 12th year in a row last year, to their lowest level since the country’s unification in 1861.
“The demographic winter is a real worry, at least here in Italy,” the pope said in his weekly address in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
“It seems that a lot of people have lost the wish to have children. Lots of couples prefer to remain childless or to have one child only. … It’s a tragedy … which runs counter to our families, our country and our future.”
According to the ISTAT statistics agency, there were 404,892 births in Italy last year, down 15,192 from 2019. In 2020, 746,146 people died, bringing the population down to 59.3 million.
According to ISTAT, the fall in births has continued this year, with the COVID-19 pandemic appearing to be a contributing reason.
