A post has gone viral on social media claiming that no babies were born in Italy in three months in 2023. We also received a request on our WhatsApp tipline to verify the authenticity of this claim. Let’s verify the claim through this article.
Claim: No babies were born in Italy for three months in 2023.
Fact: Data from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) shows that Italy recorded thousands of new births each month in 2023, averaging over 31,000 births monthly, with no month reporting zero births. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the claim, we visited the website of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). ISTAT published the Monthly Demographic Balance and resident population data by gender for 2023. The data revealed an average of over 31,000 births per month in Italy in 2023, with no month experiencing zero births.
However, we found reports (here and here) indicating that the birth rate in Italy for 2023 was 7.036 births per 1,000 people, reflecting a 1.65% decline from 2022.
Further investigation revealed that the issue gained significant attention after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stated in a conference in Turin on 3 October 2023 that Italy may struggle to meet its welfare demands by 2050 due to an ageing population and fewer young people.
To sum up, data from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) shows that Italy had thousands of new births each month in 2023, with no month reporting zero births.
