IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fir/econom/wp2025_11.html

The Future of Births via Medically Assisted Reproduction in Italy: Scenarios to 2050

Author

Abstract

Delayed childbearing is increasingly common in Italy, contributing to rising demand for medically assisted reproduction (MAR). This paper presents nine possible future scenarios of the share of MAR births in total births, based on the latest (2023) official data and three hypotheses on the evolution of maternal mean age at childbirth (no change, slow ageing, rapid ageing) combined with three hypotheses on the MAR share in the fertility schedule (no change, moderate increase, rapid increase). Our projections indicate that changes in the age structure of women of reproductive age have a negligible effect on future MAR prevalence. In contrast, delayed childbearing and continued expansion of MAR use could raise the share of MAR births from 4.3% in 2023 to 11–12% by mid-century, with a plausible upper bound exceeding 15% under sustained trends. These results underscore the growing demographic and social significance of MAR in Italy and highlight important implications for public health planning, resource allocation, and policies aimed at supporting earlier childbearing.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandra Burgio & Cinzia Castagnaro & Gustavo De Santis & Vignoli Daniele & Vitali Agnese, 2025. "The Future of Births via Medically Assisted Reproduction in Italy: Scenarios to 2050," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2025_11, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".
    • Handle: RePEc:fir:econom:wp2025_11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://labdisia.disia.unifi.it/wp_disia/2025/wp_disia_2025_11.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2025-10
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicoletta Balbo & Francesco C. Billari & Melinda Mills, 2013. "Fertility in Advanced Societies: A Review of Research," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-38, February.
    2. Jenny Chanfreau & Alice Goisis & Øystein Kravdal, 2025. "Conceptualizing and Measuring the Contribution of Assisted Reproductive Technologies to Fertility Rates," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 51(2), pages 828-857, June.
    3. Adele Lebano & Lynn Jamieson, 2020. "Childbearing in Italy and Spain: Postponement Narratives," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 46(1), pages 121-144, March.
    4. Marta Seiz & Tatiana Eremenko & Leire Salazar, 2023. "Socioeconomic differences in access to and use of Medically Assisted Reproduction (MAR) in a context of increasing childlessness," JRC Working Papers on Social Classes in the Digital Age 2023-03, Joint Research Centre.
    5. Elena Pirani & Daniele Vignoli, 2023. "Childbearing across partnerships in Italy: Prevalence, demographic correlates, and social gradient," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(3), pages 379-398, September.
    6. Anna Matysiak & Daniele Vignoli, 2024. "Family Life Courses, Uncertain Futures, and the Changing World of Work: State-of-the-Art and Prospects," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 40(1), pages 1-19, December.
    7. Valentina Tocchioni & Anna Rybińska & Monika Mynarska & Anna Matysiak & Daniele Vignoli, 2022. "Life-Course Trajectories of Childless Women: Country-Specific or Universal?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 38(5), pages 1315-1332, December.
    8. Ester Lazzari & Michaela Potančoková & Tomáš Sobotka & Edith Gray & Georgina M. Chambers, 2023. "Projecting the Contribution of Assisted Reproductive Technology to Completed Cohort Fertility," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-22, February.
    9. Maria Letizia Tanturri & Letizia Mencarini, 2008. "Childless or Childfree? Paths to Voluntary Childlessness in Italy," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 34(1), pages 51-77, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. LUPPI, FRANCESCA & Rosina, Alessandro & Testa, Maria Rita, 2024. "An Overview on Low Fertility Motivations among Italian Young-Adults," SocArXiv hf78t, Center for Open Science.
    2. Marcantonio Caltabiano & Alessandro Rosina & Chiara Ludovica Comolli, 2017. "The effect of the Great Recession on permanent childlessness in Italy," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 37(20), pages 635-668.
    3. Victor Antunes Leocádio & Ana Paula Verona & Adriana Miranda-Ribeiro, 2022. "Contributions of Sociodemographic Changes to the Increase in Permanent Childlessness in Brazil: A Cohort Decomposition Analysis," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(5), pages 1951-1973, October.
    4. Bernice Kuang & Ann Berrington & Sindhu Vasireddy & Hill Kulu, 2025. "The changing inter-relationship between partnership dynamics and fertility trends in Europe and the United States: A review," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 52(7), pages 179-228.
    5. Liu, Aoxing & Akimova, Evelina T. & Ding, Xuejie & Jukarainen, Sakari & Vartiainen, Pekka & Kiiskinen, Tuomo & Koskelainen, Sara & Havulinna, Aki S. & Gissler, Mika & Lombardi, Stefano & Fall, Tove & , 2024. "Evidence from Finland and Sweden on the relationship between early-life diseases and lifetime childlessness in men and women," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 8(2), pages 276-287.
    6. Marcantonio Caltabiano, 2016. "A turning point in Italian fertility," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 379-397, December.
    7. Margarita Chudnovskaya, 2019. "Trends in Childlessness Among Highly Educated Men in Sweden," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(5), pages 939-958, December.
    8. Petra Buhr & Johannes Huinink, 2017. "Why Childless Men and Women Give Up on Having Children," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 33(4), pages 585-606, October.
    9. Lara Patrício Tavares, 2016. "Who Delays Childbearing? The Associations Between Time to First Birth, Personality Traits and Education," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(4), pages 575-597, October.
    10. Allan Puur & Leen Rahnu & Liili Abuladze & Luule Sakkeus & Sergei Zakharov, 2017. "Childbearing among first- and second-generation Russians in Estonia against the background of the sending and host countries," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(41), pages 1209-1254.
    11. Anna Adamecz & Anna Lovász & Sunčica Vujić, 2025. "Beyond the Degree: Fertility Outcomes of ‘First in Family’ Graduates," KRTK-KTI WORKING PAPERS 2506, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    12. Thaís García-Pereiro & Anna Paterno, 2025. "Nonnationals’ Fertility and the Great Recession in Italy: A Panel Analysis of Quantum and Tempo Responses," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 11(1), pages 175-209, March.
    13. Lisa Van Landschoot & Helga A. G. de Valk & Jan Van Bavel, 2017. "Fertility among descendants of immigrants in Belgium: The role of the partner," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(60), pages 1827-1858.
    14. Natalie Nitsche & Anna Matysiak & Jan Bavel & Daniele Vignoli, 2018. "Partners’ Educational Pairings and Fertility Across Europe," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(4), pages 1195-1232, August.
    15. Philipp Dierker & Ariane Ophir & Nicole Hiekel, 2026. "From dating to marriage: changes in short-term fertility intentions across partnership transitions," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2026-010, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    16. Viviana Salinas & Valentina Jorquera-Samter, 2022. "Adolescent fertility and high school completion in Chile: Exploring gender differences," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 47(31), pages 967-1008.
    17. Radosław Murkowski, 2021. "Selected socioeconomic factors co-occurring with high fertility rate in the OECD countries," Operations Research and Decisions, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Management, vol. 31(3), pages 89-108.
    18. Francis Dennig & Bassel Tarbush, 2025. "Economic dynamics with differential fertility," Papers 2503.02074, arXiv.org, revised May 2026.
    19. José Rafael Caro-Barrera & María de los Baños García-Moreno García & Manuel Pérez-Priego, 2022. "Projecting Spanish fertility at regional level: A hierarchical Bayesian approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(10), pages 1-27, October.
    20. Bonatti, Luigi & Lorenzetti, Lorenza Alexandra & Traverso, Silvio, 2025. "Bridging the wage gap: A discussion of wage subsidies to low-paid workers and their costs in Italy," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1552, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fir:econom:wp2025_11. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Fabrizio Cipollini (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dsfirit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.