The demographic transition of advanced economies is a structural transformation that redefines the foundations of the social contract, economic competitiveness, and geopolitical balance. It is a variable that public policies can influence, although not in the short term. The challenge for Italy is twofold: to manage the immediate consequences of demographic evolution—by supporting welfare, leveraging existing talent, and opening channels to attract skills from abroad—and to build over the medium term the conditions allowing future generations to choose to stay, to return, and to contribute to the economic development of the country. The two dimensions are inseparable, and require a policy vision that goes beyond emergency logic and is capable of activating interventions of structural scope as soon as possible.
With a fertility rate of around 1.14 children per woman, among the lowest in the world, and a life expectancy of 83.6 years that places it at the top of global longevity, Italy finds itself having to simultaneously manage a declining birth rate and an aging population. Longevity is, in itself, a civilizational achievement: for the first time in human history, five generations coexist at the same time. Yet, this coexistence, if not governed by appropriate policies, risks becoming a source of tension rather than of collective wealth.
It is therefore necessary to start from the reality provided by the data: 37% of Italian families consist of a single individual; a quarter of the population is over 65; some provinces record birth rates close to zero. In the absence of migratory flows, Italy would today count the same number of inhabitants as the Italy of the 1970s. It is already the resident foreign population—around 7.5 million people, equal to 9.2% of the population—that significantly supports demographic sustainability.
The first issue to address is that of welfare. The Italian pension system is based on an implicit contract between generations: a large, young population supporting a smaller, elderly population. The “demographic winter” puts the system into crisis, while the reduced contributory capacity of younger generations poses a problem of intergenerational redistribution that traditional fiscal policies are not equipped to handle. There has also been discussion of a bill undergoing approval in the Chamber of Deputies which aims to direct the large wealth accumulated by baby boomers—a generation that benefited from exceptional growth and employment conditions—toward forms of tax-advantaged intergenerational transfer. Combining such an instrument with tax exemption mechanisms for investments in childhood, education, research, and the third sector would allow for the creation of a structural correction lever, capable of mobilizing private resources for social cohesion purposes without further burdening public spending.
Another element to consider is the relationship between demographics and economic competitiveness, which passes ever more directly through human capital. For many decades, it was believed that the competitiveness of an economy depended mainly on material factors: energy costs, physical infrastructure, labor costs, and industrial scale. This interpretation has become insufficient. Real global competition is played out today on the ability to innovate, and innovation is a function of the quality of available human capital. Countries like South Korea, where 90% of high school graduates enter university, or Canada, which has built systematic policies to attract international graduates, are redefining the parameters of competition between economic systems.
Italy finds itself in a paradoxical position: it is among the European countries with the lowest number of graduates in proportion to the population, while recording significant rates of qualified emigration. Over the last sixteen years, approximately 630,000 young people have emigrated. The phenomenon is not caused by a single factor, but by a combination of conditions: structurally lower starting salaries compared to the European average; a scarcity of urban and productive ecosystems capable of leveraging advanced skills; and bureaucratic barriers that discourage the return and integration of foreign talents trained in Italy. Indeed, it should be noted that almost half of the international students who train in Italian universities would be willing to stay, but they encounter administrative and labor market access obstacles that make this choice difficult to practice.
The response cannot be entrusted to a single tool. It requires the construction of territorial ecosystems capable of attracting, retaining, and leveraging talent: ecosystems in which universities, businesses, financial institutions, and local administrations operate in an integrated manner. Italy can leverage the paradigm of “intermediate cities”: digital technologies now make it possible to develop hubs of excellence outside major metropolitan areas, distributing human capital across the territory and counteracting the trend toward concentration that penalizes inland areas. These centers can become attractive, provided that a relational infrastructure is developed—between universities, businesses, and communities—capable of generating added value. The goal remains to bridge the gap between technical-scientific excellence and entrepreneurial culture, combining the ability to find technological solutions with the ability to bring innovative products to the market.
Precisely on the broader level of educational policy, the need emerges strongly for a leap in quality that qualifies these interventions as an integral part of industrial policies. Investing in primary education, reforming schools by overcoming disciplinary fragmentation, and building a university offering that is also attractive to international students are choices with direct repercussions on long-term productivity and competitiveness.
Italy is called upon to make a particular effort to address domestic problems, but the European dimension of these challenges cannot be ignored. Demographics have themselves become a geopolitical variable: the ability to attract, train, and retain qualified human capital is no longer just a matter of domestic economic policy, but a component of the competitive power of states in the international system. In this context, Europe suffers from a double delay. On the one hand, China has built an engineering training model that directly fuels its industrial and technological competitiveness on a global scale. On the other hand, the United States—despite going through a phase of retrenchment—maintains a systemic attractiveness based on university, salary, and entrepreneurial ecosystems that Europe has not yet managed to replicate, even though it possesses research resources and infrastructure that, if integrated into a system, could constitute a credible competitive response. A Europe of education—capable of coordinating educational investments, harmonizing the recognition of qualifications, mobilizing capital for advanced research, and offering clear settlement pathways to international talents—is today a strategic necessity. Italy, on its own, does not have the critical mass to compete in this scenario, but it can contribute to building a credible Community response, provided it comes to the table with a coherent strategy for leveraging capital and a clear vision of its political, economic, and industrial role.