In 2023, Trentino-South Tyrol was the Italian region where both women and men were predicted to live the longest lives in the whole peninsula. In the German-speaking region, the life expectancy at birth of men was around 82 years, whereas women were expected to live more than 86 years. The second place was different for males and females. In Lombardy, this figure stood at about 82 years for males and in Veneto at 86 years for females. When compared to the country’s average, women in Trentino-South Tyrol were expected to live roughly three years longer. Long life span and low birth rate Around 20 percent of the Italian population in 2023 was above 65 years. Together with a long life expectancy, Italy also has very low birth and fertility rates. In 2023, the country resulted among the 20 states with the lowest fertility rate in the world. One of the longest-living nations From a global perspective, in 2021, Italy was the 12th country in the world with the highest life expectancy. The inhabitants of Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and South Korea were expected to live about 84 years, while Italians' life expectancy was of 83 years.

In 2023, Trentino-South Tyrol recorded the highest life expectancy in Italy for both women and men at 65 years old. Veneto followed in the ranking with the second-highest life expectancy at 65 years. In 2020, life expectancy in Italy decreased dramatically due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the largest number of deaths recorded in decades.

Healthy life expectancy expresses the average number of years that a child born in a given calendar year can expect to live in good health. As of 2021, the healthy life expectancy was the highest in Trentino-South Tyrol, reaching 65.8 years of life. On the contrary, the lowest was in Calabria, with 54.4 years.

As of 2022, the average life expectancy at 65 years old in Italy was 18.8 years for men and 21.9 years for women. The macro-region with the highest life expectancy was found to be the North East, while the lowest one was registered in the Islands.

In 2023, the average life expectancy in north-eastern regions of Italy registered the highest figures. Specifically, life expectancy at birth for males reached 81.7 years, whereas for females it was 85.9 years.

Forecast: Female Life Expectancy at 65 in Italy 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

In 2023, a 65-year-old man in Italy had an average life expectancy of another 18.8 years, while a 65-year-old woman could live 22 years more. Lately, the average life expectancy at birth in the north-eastern regions of Italy registered the highest figures.

Forecast: Male Life Expectancy at 65 in Italy 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Between 2002 and 2019, life expectancy at birth for both males and females in Italy experienced a constant increase. It decreased in 2020 and reached 79.8 years for males and 84.5 years for females. After the COVID-19 pandemic, expecting living years settled to 81.1 for men and 85.2 for women.

In 2022, the total life expectancy at birth in Italy remained nearly unchanged at around 82.9 years. However, 2022 marked the second consecutive increase of the life expectancy at birth. Life expectancy at birth refers to the number of years the average newborn is expected to live, providing that mortality patterns at the time of birth do not change thereafter.Find more statistics on other topics about Italy with key insights such as infant mortality rate, fertility rate of women aged between 15 and 19 years old, and total fertility rate.

The population of Italy is getting older every year, becoming one of the oldest ones in the world. In 2024, the average age of the Italian population was 46.6 years, 3.2 years more than the average age registered in 2010. However, the age differs significantly depending on the region. According to the most recent data for 2024, the “oldest” citizens of the Italian peninsula live in the region of Liguria (average age 49.5 years), whereas the youngest inhabit Campania (44.2 years on average). Women live longer than men The difference in the average age of the population can be observed not only on a regional basis, but also between genders. In 2021, Italian women were on average roughly three years older than men. When it comes to the life expectancy, studies from 2023 confirm the longevity of Italian women. In fact, females in Italy are expected to live on average about four years longer than men. The Old Continent In 2023, Europe was the continent with the highest share of population older than 65 years. Whereas the worldwide percentage of the population over 65 years was of ten percent, the percentage of elderly people in the Old Continent reached 19 percent.

A global phenomenon, known as the demographic transition, has seen life expectancy from birth increase rapidly over the past two centuries. In pre-industrial societies, the average life expectancy was around 24 years, and it is believed that this was the case throughout most of history, and in all regions. The demographic transition then began in the industrial societies of Europe, North America, and the West Pacific around the turn of the 19th century, and life expectancy rose accordingly. Latin America was the next region to follow, before Africa and most Asian populations saw their life expectancy rise throughout the 20th century.

Life expectancy in Italy was just under thirty in the year 1870, and over the course of the next 150 years, it is expected to have increased to 83.3 by the year 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout Italy's history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. The most noticeable changes were a result of the First World War and Spanish Flu epidemic, and also the Second World War and Italian Civil War.

The average age of mothers at childbirth in Italy stood at 32.5 years as of 2023. The southern regions of Sicily and Campania had the youngest mothers nationwide, while Basilicata and Sardinia had the oldest.

In 2023, the Italian region which registered the highest fertility rate was Trentino-South Tyrol, where the average number of children born per female reached 1.42 infants. Over the last years, the fertility rate in Italy has constantly decreased, except for 2021 when a slight increase by 0.01 points was recorded. Fewer and fewer children born per womanThe average number of children born per female significantly varied from the middle of the twentieth century to present days. In 2017, Italian women were on average a mother of one child, whereas about seven decades earlier, females had on average at least two kids. The lowest fertility rates worldwide From the global perspective, Italy was one of the world's twenty countries with the lowest fertility rate in 2023. This figure in Taiwan reached only 1.07 children per woman, placing the country on top of the ranking.

This statistic shows the average life expectancy in Europe for those born in 2024, by gender and region. The average life expectancy in Western Europe was 79 years for males and 84 years for females in 2024. Additional information on European life expectancy The difference in life expectancy seen between men and women across all European regions is in line with the global trends of women outliving men, on average. The average life expectancy at birth worldwide by income group shows that the gender life expectancy gap is not only a consistent trend across countries, but also income groups. Moreover, the higher life expectancy for those in high income groups may help to explain the lower average life expectancy for those born in Eastern Europe where average incomes are generally lower than other European regions. Although income and length of life are not directly correlated, higher income individuals are generally able to afford access to superior nutrition and healthcare as well as having leisure time for exercise. That said, current trends in the increases in life expectancy worldwide by country between 1970 and 2017 suggest economic growth will lead to larger increases in life expectancy. Those increases are less likely to occur to such a degree in the more developed regions of Europe where Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Iceland and Austria all rank in the top 20 countries with the highest life expectancy.

In 2024, Italy’s resident population is estimated to be almost 59 million inhabitants. About one-sixth of them lived in Lombardy, the most populous region in the country. Lazio and Campania followed, with roughly 5.7 million and 5.6 million inhabitants, respectively. These figures are mainly driven by Rome and Naples, the administrative capitals of these regions, and two of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. Which region has the oldest population?  The population in Italy has become older and older over the last years. The average age in the country is equal to 46.6 years, but in some regions this figure is even higher. Liguria records an average age of 49.5 years and has one of the lowest birth rates in the country. Demographic trends for the future Liguria’s case, however, is not an outlier. Italy is already the country with the highest share of old people in Europe. At the same time, the very low number of new births means that, despite an always-increasing life expectancy, the Italian population is declining. Indeed, projections estimate that the country will have five million fewer inhabitants by 2050.

According to a study about the performance of the healthcare service in Italy, Emilia Romagna was the region with the highest standard of healthcare in 2023. The evaluation, expressed as scores on a scale from one to ten, was based mainly on three KPIs: efficacy, efficiency, and appropriateness of the healthcare supply. The average score for Italy was 5.7, with all southern regions scoring below the national average.
Healthcare satisfaction In 2022, the share of individuals who were 'very much and quite' satisfied with the sanitary facilities in hospitals across the country totaled almost 82 percent. Specifically, over 89 percent were satisfied with the medical care in Italian hospitals. Both these figures were lower than the ones observed in 2020 and 2021.
State of health Italy is one of the healthiest countries in the world and enjoys one of the highest life expectancies worldwide. In 2022, most of its population reported to be in good health, with over 41 million people, while people with at least one chronic disease totaled 23.7 million. The region Trentino-South Tyrol reported the highest healthy life expectancy at birth across Italy in 2021, with 65.8 years.

Sunshine, Mediterranean diet, and a sociable lifestyle must be the secret to living a long life, because Spain’s life expectancy ranked as one of the highest on the planet according to the most recent studies. The Mediterranean country managed to increase its average life expectancy by approximately two years in the last decade, standing at 83.77 years old as of 2023. Regions full of life: developed Asia and the Latin Arch There seems to be a pattern as to where in the world people’s lives tend to be longer. As can be seen in the most recent data, Japan topped the list of the countries with the longest life expectancy at 84 years old. Other developed Asian countries can be found on this list, Republic of Korea with a life expectancy of approximately 83 years old and Singapore with 83 years old. Similarly, along with Spain, France, and Italy both featured a very high life expectancy. The latest studies show that people that were born in these Mediterranean countries had an expected life length of roughly 83 years at birth. Ageing: a common problem across the continent Data related to age in Spain essentially behave in a similar fashion as the rest of its European counterparts, whose population is also slowly but surely getting older. This will not come as a surprise since Spain has one of the highest life expectancies at birth in the world and one of the lowest European fertility rate, which stood at 1.29 children per woman according to the latest reports.

In 2023, Trentino-South Tyrol was the region in Italy with the highest birth rate nationwide, with 7.9 births per 1,000 inhabitants. The following three positions in the ranking were occupied by Southern regions: Campania, Sicily, and Calabria. Indeed, south Italy was the macro-region with the largest birth-rate in Italy. Population change in Italy Over the last years, the natural increase in population dropped and the number of deaths exceeded the number of births. This phenomenon can be observed in every region of the country, with the number of births being lower than those of deaths in 2022. Consequently, on a national scale, the share of people aged over 65 years and over grew constantly, whereas the young population declined over the last decade. The median age is increasing as well. High lifespans for Italians Another factor that contributes to making the population older is that people are living longer than ever before. Data about life expectancy reveal that the expected lifespan at birth is rising: in 2023, it stood at 81.1 years for men and 85.2 years for women. In fact, lifespans in Italy are one of the highest worldwide, even above the European average.