• The Italian demography presents some structural imbalances that have matured over the last few decades. The very low fertility rate, well beyond the threshold level capable of ensuring the replacement of generations, and the lengthening of the life span beyond 80 years have generated a population structure in which the weight of the elderly, aged 65 and over, is predominant, and the contingent of young people, aged 0-14, is increasingly small.
• This situation, which slows down generational change and affects the economy, imposes adjustment choices on society.
• After describing Italy's demographic development in recent decades (from 1950 to 2020), some relationships between fertility, on the one hand, and social and economic variables, on the other, are highlighted, and some areas of intervention are identified to promote a change to redress the existing demographic imbalances. Finally, family-supporting measures that have proved effective in other European countries are discussed.

JEL Classification: J1, J21, I3.

Keywords: fertility, family policies, demography, population, Italy, Europe.

• Italy's demographic crisis has been going on for more than 35 years now, since the average number of children per woman fell below 1.5 and has not returned above that threshold.
• As a result, we were the first country in the world where the over-65s outnumbered the under-15s. According to the latest ISTAT forecasts (base 2020), the former are set to outnumber the latter threefold. Denatality is now also increasingly eroding the working-age population, weakening the chances of economic growth and sustainability of the welfare system.
• Italy has one of the largest gaps in Europe between the number of children desired and actually realised. But even the desire to have a child risks being weakened if it is not helped to become planned and successfully realised in the life of the couple and within the community of reference.
• In comparison with other countries, there are mainly three nodes that hinder the full realisation of reproductive projects: the difficulties of young people in gaining full economic autonomy; the shortcomings of work-family reconciliation tools; and the high exposure to the risk of poverty for families that go beyond the second child. The health emergency caused by Covid-19 has worsened all these issues.
• The conditions for a reversal of the birth rate trend, from values below 400,000 to values above 500 within this decade are there, but they require an increase in fertility to levels higher than the European average (because the reduction in 'potential mothers' in Italy is greater). This also requires that Italian family policies for the new generations be brought up to the levels of the best European experiences. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and the Family Act are entirely new instruments that have the potential to make a difference. But their outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion.

JEL Classification: J11, J13, J18.

Keywords: demographic crisis, birth rate, family policies, Family Act, demographic imbalances.

• The reasons for Italy's low fertility could be not only economic and institutional, but also cultural, linked to a gradual acceptance of a family model with no or few children.
• This paper explores the existence of this cultural factor using data from the Toniolo Institute's Youth 2020 Report, analysing a representative sample of women aged 30-34 without children or with one child.
• Alongside women who do not want children, the study reveals the existence of a sizeable group of women who want (other) children but have little motivation to have them, as they do not consider it indispensable for their personal fulfilment. These women also seem more willing to sacrifice parenthood in the face of other goals in their lives if they find them irreconcilable.

JEL Classification: J13, J16.

Keywords: low fertility, childlessness, fertility desires, motivation for parenthood, uncertainty, Italy.

• The delay in the transition to adulthood of young Italians entails the chronicisation of a state of inferiority in terms of relative power in the family, in the labour market and in social relations.
• This 'lag syndrome' has tangible consequences on the structure of the population, intensifying its ageing process through the postponement or renunciation of reproductive decisions by the young.
• The general health of the country, weakened by the lack of young people in the labour force and held back by the increasing emphasis on the role and resources of the family of origin and the consequent strengthening of social stratification, is also suffering.

JEL Classification: J1, J21, I3.

Keywords: transition to adulthood, delay syndrome, youth, life course, social exclusion.

• The paper exploits data and projections on the age structure of the population in a multi-country, overlapping-generation, two-sector model to assess the macroeconomic impact of global population ageing.
• According to the model, population ageing can explain: (a) more than 50% of the decline in the natural real interest rate ('secular stagnation'); (b) most of the divergence in net international positions between countries ('global imbalances'); (c) up to about one-fifth of the sectoral reallocation of resources from the goods (tradable) sector to the services (non-tradable) sector.
• The model predicts, based on the most recent UN demographic projections, that there will be no reversal of these trends during the 21st century.

JEL Classification: E17, E21, E43, E52, J11, O11, O14.

Keywords: population ageing, secular stagnation, global imbalances, structural transformation, natural rate of interest, overlapping generations models.

• The work explores the relationships between demographic changes, health expenditure and health policies, looking at the elderly as service users, voters, taxpayers.
• While it is indisputable - based on the data - that as age increases so do health risks and the need for health services, the literature review on the impact of ageing on health expenditure shows mixed results. Our exercises on Italian regional data show that - in the long run - there is a statistically significant positive effect of the share of the over-65s on per capita public health expenditure, which disappears when short time periods are analysed. There is no effect for the share of the 'very old'.
• On the political front, the elderly seem to favour political parties with platforms oriented towards an expansion of social spending. Looking at the current sources of funding of the NHS, the consumption behaviour of the elderly can influence the revenue and funding capacity of the NHS along different channels.

JEL Classification: H51, I10, J11.

Keywords: ageing, public health expenditure, health policies.

• Population dynamics is one of the most important global challenges, along with the environment. In recent decades the world population has grown rapidly, become longer-lived and the inequality between different age groups has increased. Italy has an average long-lived population with one of the highest shares of over-65s in the world (22.8% of the total). If from the point of view of the sustainability of the pension system this represents a problem that is difficult to solve, from the economic point of view it is an opportunity: the over 65s in Italy spend about 200 billion Euros a year, almost one fifth of the entire amount of household consumption; they also have a higher per capita spending capacity but also a relatively more stable one with respect to the economic cycle, in comparison with the other population groups. The silver economy, therefore, presents itself as an opportunity for companies to invest in a sector with vast and growing potential, which even in the current phase represents an important resource for the country's economic recovery.

JEL classification: J14, I130, I150, P46.

Keywords: active ageing, healthy life expectancy, propensity to consume.

• In this study we evaluate the effect of migration on the production structure for some European countries for the period before the Great Recession, 2001-2009. We propose an approach based on work tasks (i.e. tasks) involving different skills. The inflow of migrants increases the supply of manual (or simple) tasks compared to complex tasks that require more communication and language skills, favouring production in sectors that employ a higher intensity of simple tasks.
• We use the US O*NET database to determine the relative utilisation intensity of simple tasks in each country's manufacturing sectors and the EU Labor Force Survey to assess the effect of migration on the composition of employment between natives and migrants. Our analyses confirm that the increase in the stock of migrants has a positive impact on all value added in the manufacturing sector as a consequence of the increase in resources, but value added increases significantly more in those sectors that use simple tasks more intensively. To overcome possible endogeneity problems we use a traditional shift-share instrument.

JEL Classification: F22, C25, J24.

Keywords: international migration, work tasks, O*NET, Rybczynski effect.