Straight Line of the Day: Italy’s Going Extinct? One Solution Is…

Italy is Dying: Country’s Birth Rate Drops to its Lowest Level in History
LifeSite News | 2/20/20 | Dorothy Cummings McLean

Italy welcomed its smallest number of newborns in 2019, leading its president to foretell the country’s doom.

“This is a problem that concerns the very existence of our country,” said Sergio Mattarella, 78.

“The fabric of our country is weakening, and everything must be done to counter this phenomenon.”

According to Italy’s national statistics agency, ISTAT, there were only 435,000 births in Italy last year, the lowest number ever recorded in the country, compared with 647,000 deaths.

The number of births was down 5,000 from 2018, and the number of deaths increased by 14,000.

Reuters reported that Italy’s overall population fell by 116,000 to 60.3 million despite the growing number of births to migrants to the country.

The news agency also noted that “Italy’s population had risen virtually every year since World War I, hitting a peak in 2015 at 60.8 million, but has since started to decline.”

Life expectancy has increased to 85.3 years for Italian women and 81 years for Italian men. The decrease in births and increase in life expectancy has resulted in an average age of 45.7.

When the low number of Italian births for 2018 was reported, then-interior minister Matteo Salvini said, “We are in a terrible state.”

“This is the real crisis (in Italy), not the bond yield spreads or the economic crisis.”

Italian-American Beverly Stevens, editor of Regina magazine, told LifeSiteNews that the sexual revolution is to blame for the low Italian birth rate.

Show me a modern Sophia Loren, and I’ll see what I can do.