In 2021 the balance of foreign residents in Italy is down compared to 2019 (-15.4%). This is what emerges from the Istat data contained in the report "Foreign residents and new citizens: demographic characteristics and territorial distribution - year 2021".
The document shows that foreigners reside mainly in northern Italy, 59% of the total, a distribution in which Italian citizens are also concentrated by acquisition equal to 66.5%. Among foreigners, births decreased (-4.8% on 2020) and deaths increased (+8.6%), a trend that still seems to be affected by the pandemic impact. The immigration of foreign citizens is instead recovering (+27% on 2020), after the significant drop due to the closure of borders for Covid, but they do not recover pre-pandemic levels.
In 2021, the natural balance of the foreign population is positive in all regions. At national level, the natural growth rate stands at 9.2 percent (or 9.2 per 1000 inhabitants) and varies from + 11.3 percent in Veneto to + 5.3 percent in Sardinia. The decrease in the natural component is marked in the autonomous provinces of Bolzano and Trento, which from 2019 to 2021 both went from 13 percent to 10 percent; the least evident decline is recorded in Sardinia (from 5.5 percent to 5.3 percent).
The births of children to both foreign parents are concentrated in regions where not only the foreign presence is more widespread and rooted, but where integration processes are also more advanced: in the North-East (20.6% of total births) and in the North-West (20.1%). Emilia-Romagna has the highest incidence of foreign births (24.0%), Sardinia the lowest (4.4%). The birth rate in the foreign resident population as a whole is 11.2 percent. The record is held by Veneto (13.0 percent), followed by Valle d'Aosta and Emilia-Romagna with 12.9 percent. In Sardinia there is the lowest value (7.4 percent).