Italy recorded 141,000 citizens emigrating in 2024 — the highest number in a decade and triple the figure from just over twenty years ago, according to new data from the country’s social security agency INPS. The numbers, reported by L’Espresso, paint a demographic picture “in the red.”
Perhaps the most alarming finding comes from AlmaLaurea, which tracks university graduates: among those who leave, only one in six imagines ever returning to Italy. The exodus is driven by familiar forces — limited career opportunities, low wages relative to Northern Europe, and a sense that the country’s structural problems are intractable. [9]
