Eiropa *jau* ir piedzīvojusi mēri — demogrāfisko mēri
By 2050, the statistics agency estimates, 15-64-year-olds could make up little more than half of Italy's total population, or 54.2 percent. That would be a drop of around 10 percent from an already low level today, or more than 6 million fewer potential workers, with potentially drastic consequences for productivity and demands on welfare.

It represents "a true numerical decline whose only precedent in Italy's history is the long-ago period of 1917-18, an era marked by the Great War and the dramatic effects of the Spanish flu pandemic", said Istat's president Gian Carlo Blangiardo.

"If until the last century our demographics demonstrated vitality and often helped boost the country's growth, including economic, on the contrary today they could have a restrictive effect," commented Blangiardo.

At the heart of the imbalance is a plunging birth rate, which has been declining for years at the same time as more Italians are living longer. Some 439,000 births were registered in Italy last year, according to Istat, a decrease of nearly 140,000 compared to 2008. By 2016 nearly half of women in Italy aged 18-49, 45 percent, didn't have any children at all.

https://www.thelocal.it/20190620/italy-is-in-a-demographic-recession-not-seen-since-world-war-one