Some Considerations About the Evolution of Fertility in Italy

        Abstract: The evolution of fertility in Italy has been characterized by significant structural changes, which led to the current situation. Starting from the second post-war period, fertility is gradually increased in our country reaching a peak at the so-called baby-boom in the mid-sixties, where economic/social factors have induced a significant grow in births and, at the same time, a consistent reduction of infant mortality, bringing the TFR to reach a value of 2.69. This period was followed by several years of low fertility, known as lowest-low fertility, due to several factors including, of course, a new working role of women, a higher education and a radical transformation of lifestyles of post oil crisis society. These changes have prompted a strong delay in the entrance of women in the reproductive life, causing a collapse of the reproduction rate to levels of 1.2 children per woman. However, in order to analyze the evolution of Italian fertility one of the main aspects is certainly the different age structure of the reproductive rates. Indeed, by analyzing the time series of specific fertility rates at different ages, we show that:

Ÿ women about 30 years old play a central role in the behavior of fertility in Italy instead of those of 25 years old;

Ÿ in 2014, the modal age at delivery becomes 31.5 years;

Ÿ the contribution to the fertility of women about 20 years old, which played a crucial role for the TFR in the past, tends to vanish, reaching extremely low levels in the recent years. 

In the light of these considerations, we observe the performance of the gross rate of reproduction built longitudinally: despite the lowest-low fertility characterizing the evolution of fertility in Italy, from the nineties onwards the value of this rate has never fallen below 1.6 children per woman. This occurs despite the observed delay in fertility, where the parental experience tends to be approached after 30 years; therefore, it could express its full potential in the next 10 years, when all women who have not yet experienced the parental experience will approach the ages between 30 and 40 years.

In order to check the above-mentioned behavior, we also apply a suitable class of ARIMA models to estimate the evolution of the specific fertility rates at different ages. This analysis points to a consistent grow of the fertility in the age of 30 to 40, showing also how in the next 10 years this improvement could affect the transversal TFR, which will tend to the longitudinal one in a medium term period. 

Key words: population growth; fertility; ARIMA models

JEL codes: J0, J1, J6