Italy, which has for years recorded one of Europe's lowest birth rates, is on track to lose a fifth of its population in 50 years, official data suggested.

The Istat national statistics agency wrote that the data marked “a potential picture of crisis” in its report on Friday, titled “The future of the population – fewer residents, more older people, smaller families.”

Nearly a quarter of Italy’s population is aged 65 or older, at 23.2 percent, and that is expected to grow to 35 percent by 2050, according to Istat’s estimate.

“The age structure of the population already shows a high imbalance in favour of the older generations and there are currently no factors that might suggest a reversal of this trend,” read the report.

“Demographic forecasts show that there is little likelihood of a turnaround in the number of births in the years to come.”

Italy’s population is expected to decrease from 59.6 million people in January 2020 to 47.6 million in 2070, it predicted, representing a drop of 20 percent.

Whereas in 2020, the average age of Italians was 45.7, it is expected to rise to 50.7 by 2050, Istat said.

And continuing a trend begun in 2007, in which deaths have surpassed births each year, within less than three decades, deaths are expected to outweigh births by a factor of two, 784,000 against 391,000.

Istat wrote that immigration from abroad to Italy should begin to recover after the Covid-19 pandemic, and beginning in 2023 regain its pre-pandemic average levels at about 280,000 immigrants per year, although that is expected to decrease gradually to 244,000 annually by 2070.

Emigration, which is also expected to recover its pre-pandemic levels, is expected to decrease from 145,000 annual departures in 2025 to 126,000 in 2070.

Last year, the Italian population shrank by almost 400,000 — roughly the size of the city of Florence — as deaths peaked, births bottomed out and immigration slowed down.

In 2020, as coronavirus swept the country, the figure fell to 404,000.