Local and Global Analysis of the Fertility Rate in Italy

Massimo Mucciardi , Università di Messina
Mary Ellen Toffle, Università di Messina
Daniele Vignoli, University of Florence

The Total Fertility Rate is one of the most famous demographic indicators because it indicates the status of well-being of the population as well as an understanding of the productive potential and development of a nation. Following the rapid and intense decrease after the "babyboom", today Italy is one of the nations with the lowest fertility rate, both at the European and world level among those nations considered to be advanced. In recent time, the TFR was equal to 1.34, very close to the so-called "lowest low fertility" threshold. These low values of fertility not only impact on the population's age structure, but also on social welfare systems since the increasing share of elderly needs more financial aid while the support from the working age population decreases. Through the use of a Semi-parametric Geographically Weighted Regression (S-GWR) we try to investigate the “local and global” determinates of TFR in Italy.

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 Presented in Session 3. Population, Development, & the Environment; Data & Methods; Applied Demography