Europe's population peaks in 2029, deepening the South's demographic crisis

The European Union's population will peak in 2029 and then fall in the coming decades, according to a report published this week, as cited by the Local Italy. The projection underscores a continent-wide challenge that Italy—and Molise in particular—has been experiencing for years: ageing, emigration of the young, and a birth rate too low to sustain natural growth.

For Molise, the EU milestone arrives as an echo of a crisis already here. The region's population has contracted steadily since the 1990s as young people migrate north to Milan and Turin, or abroad to Germany and Switzerland in search of jobs. The region's median age has climbed above 45; fertility rates sit well below replacement level. Schools close; villages empty; the workforce shrinks. What the EU faces as a future challenge, Molise confronts as present reality.

The broader European trend—demographic decline—will eventually reshape labour markets, pension systems and tax bases across the bloc. But for peripheral regions like Molise, the timeline is compressed. By the time Brussels grapples with the fiscal and social consequences of an ageing continent, Molise may have already hollowed out entirely. The region's survival now depends on reversing emigration, a task that requires jobs, services and opportunity—precisely what the South has struggled to provide.

Molise's demographics are not incidental to its economy; they are its economy's defining constraint. The region's agriculture and small manufacturing depend on a working-age population that no longer exists in sufficient numbers. Young people who might inherit farms or manage small factories instead board trains for the North or planes for abroad. The region's public services—schools, hospitals, local government—are dimensioned for a population that is vanishing.

The EU's projection of decline after 2029 reflects fertility rates well below 2.1 children per woman across much of Europe, but the decline is uneven. Northern Europe will age more slowly and retain more of its young through immigration and higher birth rates. Southern Europe, including Italy, will age faster and lose more young people to emigration. Molise sits at the extreme end of this gradient: youngest people leaving, oldest people staying, fertility among the lowest in Europe.

The Local Italy's report frames demographic change as a challenge for pensions and healthcare across the EU. But for Molise, the challenge is existential. A region cannot sustain itself on pensioners alone. It needs workers to pay taxes, young families to fill schools, consumers to support shops and services. Without reversing the emigration of the young—through job creation, wage competitiveness, or quality-of-life improvements—Molise faces not merely demographic decline but the possibility of becoming what some Italians have long joked it is: a place that no longer exists.