Italy in demographic decline - ISTAT

(ANSA) - Rome, July 3 - The population of Italians in Italy, not counting foreigners, fell between 2015 and 2018 marking "a demographic decline for the first time in 90 years", ISTAT said Wednesday.
    As of December 31 2018 the population of Italian origin was 55.104 million, 235,000 or 0.4% lower than the previous year, the statistics agency said.
    With respect to 2014 the drop is equivalent to the population of a large city like Palermo, at 677,000.
    2018 was the fourth straight year that there was a decline in the population, ISTAT said.
    Births were down 4% to 439,747, a historic low since Italian unification.
    ISTAT said there were 60,359,546 people in Italy at the end of last year, of whom 8.7% are foreigners.