Elon Musk, one of the richest personalities in the world, has been raising the issue of decline in population growth for a long time.
Musk believes that population decline due to low birth rates is a greater threat to civilization than global warming.
Now he has shared the data of a European country in which it has been told that there has been a huge decline in the population there.
We are talking about Italy. The birth rate in Italy declined again last year. However, due to immigration the total population has remained almost constant. The National Statistical Institute (ISTAT) gave this information on Friday.
There were approximately 58.9 million people in Italy as of January 01, 2024, a net decline of 7,000 people from the previous year. This reflects the demographic decline that has been occurring since 2014.
The data showed that 379,000 babies were born in Italy last year, and the birth rate stood at 6.4 babies per 1,000 people, compared with 6.7 per thousand in 2022.
Sharing the same figure, X boss Elon Musk wrote, “There were only 379,000 births in Italy in 2023, which is the lowest annual figure since the country’s unification in 1861.”
If we look at previous figures, 14,000 fewer children were born in 2022 than in previous years. That means a total decline of 4.6 percent was recorded. At the same time, approximately 197,000 fewer children have been born compared to 2008.
For the first time in the year 2008, the trend of decline in birth rate started here. Due to this, the average number of children born to women in Italy will decrease from 1.24 in 2022 to 1.2 in 2023.
This situation is seen equally throughout Italy. However, due to the settlement of foreigners in Italy, the total population there remained almost stable. Foreign-born people in Italy constitute about nine percent of the entire population, and this has helped limit demographic decline.
A recent report published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs analyzed the share of people aged 65 and older in every country.
This shows that Italy, with 23.7 percent of elderly people, is second only to Japan (29.8 percent), but higher than Finland (22.9 percent), Portugal (22.6 percent), and Greece (22.5 percent).