Total fertility rate of Italy 1850-2020

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. From 1850 until 1910, Italy's fertility rate dropped from 5.5 children per woman to 4.4, and over the next fifty years it dropped a lot more sharply, fluctuating along the way. By 1920 it had dropped to 3.3, as a result of the First World War and the economic turmoil that followed. The interwar years saw some fluctuation, but overall the fertility rate dropped to just 2.6 in 1945. In the 75 years that have followed the war, Italy's fertility rate has followed previous trends, where there are some periods of increase, but overall it declined. In the late 1900s Italy had one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, at just 1.2 children per woman in 200, although this has increased slightly in the past two decades, and is expected to be just over 1.3 in 2020.