ROMA (ITALPRESS) – Economic inequalities remain significant. In 2025, almost 11 million individuals (18.6%) are at risk of poverty, over a fifth of the population declares to arrive at the end of the month with difficulty and over a quarter has difficulty facing unexpected expenses. In 2024 absolute poverty affects 5.7 million people (9.8%), for a total of 2.2 million families (8.4%), with an incidence that rises strongly among families of foreign singles (35.2%) and those consisting of at least 5 members with minor children (22.3%). This is what emerges from the Istat Annual Report presented by Francesco Maria Chelli, president of the Institute. In the territorial context, the Mezzogiorno continues to record the highest value (10.5% of households), with a significant increase in the individual incidence in the Islands (from 11.9% of 2023 to 13,4 of 2024). The degree of study emerges as the main factor of protection: absolute poverty affects 15.1% of people aged 25 and more with the average license against 2.3% of graduates. Economic difficulties affect primary consumption less than in the past. In 2025, 9.3% of the population (5.4 million people) declared that they could not afford a protein meal every two days (it was 12.6% in 2014). Energy poverty, the inability to properly warm up housing or use essential energy services, is on the increase, from 7.7% in 2022 to 9.1% in 2024.
The economic prospects for Italy, as for other major countries, for 2026 are conditioned by geopolitical tensions and the consequent rise in the prices of energy raw materials and above all oil (120 dollars per barrel about Brent in April according to the data of the World Bank), which feeds new inflationary pressures. In the face of a worsening in the first months of 2026 of the climate of trust especially of consumers, strongly influenced by global shocks, the estimates of the main Italian and international predictors show a dynamism contained for the Italian GDP also in 2026 that would maintain a rate of growth similar to that observed in 2025.
The population living in Italy on 1 January 2026 counts 58.9 million people. The growth rate is close to zero, but improving compared to the previous two years (-0,5 per thousand of 2024 and -0,4 per thousand in 2023). The natural balance between births and deaths continues to be negative (-296 thousand units). The migration dynamic, with the number of immigrants from abroad that exceeds that of migration, remains positive, fully compensating (+296 thousand units) the deficit due to natural dynamics, and helping to maintain stable the population. Foreign citizens residing on 1 January 2026 are 5.6 million (+3.5% compared with 1 January 2025) and represent 9.4% of the total population. Foreigners who acquired Italian citizenship in 2025 are 196 thousand, decreasing compared to the previous two years. The births in 2025 amount to 355 thousand units.
Italy is characterized by a demographic structure strongly unbalanced towards older age groups. On 1 January 2026, the average age of the resident population is 47.1 years, growing almost two and a half months compared to the previous year. Young people up to 14 years are 11.6% of the population, while individuals aged 65 and over, increased by 11.3% in a decade, came to represent 25.1% of the total. The decline of births, which is associated with an average age with high birth (32.7 years, in 2025), is fed, as well as by the lesser propensity to have children, also by the reduced consistency of generations in reproductive age, less and less numerous in the population. In 2025, births amounted to 355 thousand units, down 3.9% compared to the previous year; the average number of children per woman touches a historical minimum of 1,14, placing Italy among European countries with the lowest fertility. Graduated or graduated women, in particular, have lower levels of fertility and later reproductive calendars, with a concentration of births in a shorter age range. In this context, it reduces the share of 18-49enni who express the intention of having a child (from 50.7% of 2003 to 45.3% of 2024), braked mainly by economic and working uncertainties.
In 2025 employment in Italy continued the expansion phase (+0.8%), while showing a gradual slowdown compared to the growth rates of the previous two years. In the medium-term comparison (2019-2025), the increase in employment in Italy (+4.3%) is higher than that of Germany (+2.4%), but still lower than France (+6.4%) and Spain (+12.6%). Employment dynamics are accompanied by a marked reduction in the number of unemployed, which between 2019 and 2025 fell by 42.6%. The employment rate reached 62.5% (+3.5 percentage points compared to 2019), bringing unemployment to 6.1% in the average of 2025 (+5.2% in March 2026). Despite improvements, the national employment rate remains structurally lower than the main European partners. Contractual wages in 2025 grew by 3.1% in nominal terms, with increased increases in industry (+3.4%) compared to services (+3%) and public administration (+2.7%). The performance of contractual wages, higher than the inflation rate – reads again – allowed for the second consecutive year to achieve a recovery in real terms, although at the end of 2025 the loss of purchasing power compared to 2019 remains still wide (equal to +8.6%). In 2025, the weakness of labour productivity and the increase in labour costs lead to an increase in costs per product unit of 1.7%. The production system partially shocked these pressures through a contraction of profit margins, which in 2025 recorded a bending of 0.5%.
The performance of contractual wages, higher than the inflation rate, allowed for the second consecutive year to carry out a recovery in real terms, although at the end of 2025 the loss of purchasing power over 2019 remains still wide (equal to 8.6%). For 2026, the wage dynamics acquired are estimated to be over 2%, but the possible continuation of the new impennage of energy goods prices is likely to slow down the recovery phase of purchasing power.
CHELLI “ECONOMIA ITALIANA RESILIENTE”
“In the last year the Italian economy has shown signs of resilience in a complex global scenario, marked by geopolitical tensions and by a persistent uncertainty. The growth potential remains bound by long-term criticalities, including the modest trend in productivity, which could benefit from a greater knowledge of production processes. One of the key challenges for the country is to play, moreover, on the ability to value the human capital we have and will be able to dispose of.” Thus the president of Istat, Francesco Maria Chelli, on the occasion of the presentation of the Annual Report. “The Report highlights how more investment in education, digital skills and innovation is an essential condition for maintaining employment levels, improving wage conditions and, more generally, collective well-being, in a social context marked by vulnerabilities that persist over time,” he adds.
“The adoption of new technologies is in fact not sufficient to stimulate economic growth, if not accompanied by the maturation of new skills and, together, by a reorganization of business processes, in an economic system that will have to take into account the increase of the average age of the workforce. On the demographic front, the country is confronted with the growing ageing of the population and with a birth to the historical minimum. The future scenarios require careful consideration of the risks of sustainability for the welfare and health system, and to continue to address with incisiveness the issue of the management of family care loads and the full valorisation of our young people – of which we must retain the talents – whose defiant is configured as a hemorrhage of skills that assumes particularly critical tones for the Mezzogiorno”.
According to Chelli “the challenge is also to prevent social, economic, health and territorial inequalities from crystallizing, acting, as well as on a greater investment in education, also on the strengthening of social capital, protection factor against exclusion risks, reduced social mobility and less well-being. It is important, in this regard, to promote effective digital inclusion and the development of adequate skills, reducing the negative reflections of new technologies especially for young generations. These are certainly important challenges that require the cohesion of all actors and all the forces that can contribute to the development of our society,” he concludes.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
