Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has suggested that encouraging Italians to have more children would lessen the country’s reliance on regular immigration to fill labour shortages.
Speaking at the 17th edition of the Festival del Lavoro at Rome’s La Nuvola Congress Centre on May 21, 2026, Tajani linked Italy’s demographic decline to its labour market needs.
“We have a problem of demographic decline and we must understand if we want to have more children,” he said.
“And if we have more children then we can also say: fine, we reduce the number of regular migrants who come to work in our companies, but otherwise we have no workers.”
He added that falling birth rates increase demand for foreign workers in Italian firms, with associated challenges around integration and the risk of irregular immigration.
Tajani also flagged the loss of young Italian professionals who leave the country in search of higher wages elsewhere in Europe, warning that domestic firms were struggling to retain them.
Italy has one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe, with births falling to record lows in recent years.
Official data show the native population continues to shrink, while net migration has been the main factor stabilising the overall resident population at around 59 million.
Italy’s low birth rate has fuelled legal immigration to sustain the economy, particularly in sectors facing chronic labour shortages.
The comments quickly drew criticism from the left-wing opposition Democratic Party (PD).
PD senator Valeria Valente described the remarks as “absurd”, arguing that Italy needs both higher birth rates and well-managed immigration.
“These are all issues for which the Meloni Government has done little and has done it wrong because it continues to look at the world from the keyhole of nationalisms, while we should think of Italy in terms of a piece of the United States of Europe.”
Tajani, who leads Forza Italia, is a senior figure in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s centre-right coalition government.
Italy is experiencing one of the most acute demographic crises in Europe.
In 2025, the country’s total fertility rate fell to a record low of 1.14 children per woman, down from 1.18 the previous year, according to provisional figures from national statistics agency ISTAT.
This is well below the replacement level of 2.1 required to maintain a stable population over the long term.
As a result, births dropped to a historic low of 355,000, a decline of 3.9 per cent compared with 2024 and the fewest since Italian unification in 1861.
Meanwhile, deaths stood at around 652,000, producing a natural population deficit of approximately 296,000.
This negative natural balance has persisted for years, driving a gradual shrinkage of the native Italian population.
As of January 1, 2026, the resident population totalled roughly 58.94 million, virtually stable after 12 consecutive years of decline.
The Italian-citizen population dropped by 189,000 to 53.38 million, while the foreign-resident population reached 5.56 million, or 9.4 per cent of the total, marking an increase of 188,000 (+3.5 per cent) over the previous year.
ISTAT recorded around 440,000 arrivals against 144,000 departures in 2025. Net international migration of 296,000 almost entirely offset the natural decline. Without this flow, the population would have fallen by nearly 300,000.
Italian life expectancy remained among the highest in Europe at 81.7 years for men and 85.7 years for women, further straining the pension and healthcare systems.
The implications are already visible in an ageing society and shrinking workforce.
Italy’s median age continues to rise and the ratio of working-age individuals to dependents is deteriorating.
Without sustained net migration or a significant recovery in birth rates, official projections indicate the total population could decline to around 54 to 55 million by 2050.
The working-age population (15-64) would shrink markedly, placing further strain on the pension system, healthcare and economic growth.
Under current trends of persistently low native fertility combined with continued net migration of 200,000 to 300,000 per year, the share of residents of recent foreign origin (including naturalised citizens and their descendants) is expected to rise steadily.
Independent analyses suggest this group could approach or exceed 30 to 40 per cent of the population by 2050-2070, potentially pushing the native Italian share below 50 per cent in the second half of the century if policies remain unchanged.