The role of demography

This chapter aims at collecting the current knowledge, inevitably based on limited data, and indicating what can be expected in terms of demographic behaviour in the case of Italy. On the one hand, despite the significant increase in the number of deaths, the impact on life expectancy and age structure will probably be finite. On the other hand, the uncertainty caused by the pandemic and the economic recession is likely to act as a brake on life choices (such as union formation and childbearing), discourage immigration and accentuate social inequalities.