Sardinian women no longer have children: the island is increasingly blacklisted in Italy due to its declining birth rate
According to the latest Istat data, the regional fertility rate went from 0.95 to 0.91 in one year. There is also alarm over depopulation, which continues unabated. On the other hand, life expectancy is rising, although it remains lower than the national average
Sardinia is confirmed as the Italian region with the lowest birth rate and the second region most affected, after Basilicata, by depopulation.
The new, worrying photograph was taken from the latest Istat report on "Demographic Indicators", based on 2023 data.
WOMEN WITHOUT CHILDREN – «Sardinia – underlines the Institute of Statistics – continues to be the region with the lowest fertility. Stably placed below the level of one child per woman for the fourth consecutive year, in 2023 it is positioned at 0.91 children (0.95 in 2022) ", against a national average of 1.20 and against the average of 1.42 of Trentino Alto Adige, the area of Italy where the most children are made.
«All the Sardinian provinces, at the national minimum, have a fertility rate lower than one child per woman : from those of Cagliari and Southern Sardinia (0.86 for both) to those of Oristano (0.93), Sassari (0.95) and Nuoro (0.99)", continues Istat.
HISTORICAL MINIMUM - A decline in fertility which affects, however, the entire peninsula, with numbers at historic lows: «According to provisional data - we read in the report - the births resident in Italy are 379 thousand, with a birth rate equal to 6, 4 per thousand (it was 6.7 per thousand in 2022) . The decrease in births compared to 2022 is 14 thousand units (-3.6%). Since 2008, the last year in which there was an increase in births in Italy, the decline has been 197 thousand units (-34.2%). The reduction in the birth rate - the Institute points out - concerns births of Italian and foreign citizenship without distinction. The latter, equal to 13.3% of the total newborns, are 50 thousand, 3 thousand less than in 2022".
“ELDERLY” MOTHERS – Furthermore, Sardinia is the region where the “calendar” of births is most postponed : we read in the Istat report, in fact, that women on the island become mothers for the first time at the age of 33, 2 years , against a national average of 32.5 years and against 31.7 years in Sicily, the region with the "youngest" mothers in Italy.
DEPOPULATION – Returning to Sardinia, things are no better as regards depopulation: « The regions in which the most population has been lost are Basilicata (-7.4 per thousand) and Sardinia (-5.3 per thousand)» , in fact, Istat notes.
At a national level, however, «as of 1 January 2024 the resident population in Italy amounted to 58 million 990 thousand units (provisional data), down by 7 thousand units compared to the same date of the previous year (-0.1 per thousand inhabitants )".
LIFE EXPECTANCY – On the life expectancy front, the news regarding the Island is in chiaroscuro: if on the one hand life expectancy at birth is growing for both males (80 years, +0.4) and females ( 85.2, +0.6), on the other hand, for both sexes , life expectancy in Sardinia remains below the national average (81.1 and 85.2), with the figure regarding men placed by the island in fourth last place , ahead only of Sicily, Calabria and Campania.
