Elon Musk Makes Dire Prediction About Italy
For several months, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of Twitter, has been using his influence to draw the world’s attention to the rapid decline of the population in Italy. Last month, for example, he took advantage of a message from cybersecurity researcher Andrea Stroppa to reaffirm that the problem was becoming very serious. Musk, who has since been warning about the decline in birth rates in major countries, did not hesitate to comment and sounded the alarm.
Italy is facing two issues, according to demographic experts and official data. The number of elderly people is rapidly increasing while the birth rate has slumped. The country is therefore forced to manage a boom in the ageing population. These factors make Italy the Western country with the fastest population decline.
The number of births in Italy fell in 2020 to its lowest level since the country’s unification in 1861, according to Istat, the Italian National Institute of Statistics. This was the 12th consecutive year of decline. Births stood at 404,892, or 15,192 fewer than in 2019. The number of deaths rose to 746,146 in 2020 and the population decreased to 59.3 million.
The decline continued in 2021, according to data from January to September, with 12,500 fewer births over the period compared to the first nine months of 2020. The average number of children per woman residing in Italy was 1.24 in 2020, one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Besides Italy, Musk estimates that the populations of Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong are declining at worrying rates.
The Techno King, as he is known at Tesla, believes that strong incentives must be given to families to encourage young people to have children. He also bucks the conventional wisdom that it is the cost of living that discourages some people from having children.
