Countries full of empty houses, everywhere more dead than born. Brains (and not only) on the run. An unstoppable diaspora deserts the inland areas of the island but not even the coast is immune from it. It is called depopulation. Or if we want slow death. The example of Lanusei, once a thriving town that attracted residents from other municipalities in droves, is emblematic. "In 2019, according to Istat data, it was the Ogliastra country with more deaths than births (count that has nothing to do with the data of births and deaths of the hospital unit), a position that unfortunately continues to maintain, albeit decreasing ". Cinzia Blumenthal, a young civil status officer in the Municipality of Lanusei, provides an alarming figure, the result of a meticulous research that does not end with Genna Silana at the mouth of the Flumendosa but reveals the demographic situation in which Sardinia and the whole boot are. “In 2020 the population of Sardinia went from 1,611,621 inhabitants to 1,598,225. On average it is like losing about 1350 inhabitants every month (adding natural balance and emigrants) ”. To be honest it is as if in Sardinia, every month, an entire country disappears.
“From a demographic point of view - says Blumenthal - Italy is confirmed as one of the countries with the lowest birth rate in the world. Since 2007 there has been a decline in births and an increase in deaths. In 2020, the number of births reached an all-time low since the unification of Italy and mortality exceeded the maximum rate recorded since World War II with a natural negative balance of -342,042 units ”.
Those who thought that being locked in the house during the lockdown meant more intimacy and more conception were blatantly wrong. “Unlike what had been hypothesized, the result of the various lockdown periods - says the registrar - was not an increase in conception and births. Throughout Italy but especially in the north, during the Covid emergency, births decreased and deaths increased with the consequent reduction in life expectancy at birth ".
The country system, in times of maximum uncertainty, generates a drop in consumption and an increase in savings. And starting a family is increasingly difficult. In 2020 the number of marriages was halved compared to the previous year. “Civil and religious unions have decreased by about 50 per cent in the South and a little less in the rest of Italy. All these data - reflects Cinzia Blumenthal - lead us to think that Italians are living this period of economic and health instability with caution, a situation that inevitably reflects on the private life of citizens and therefore also on the politics and economy of the country ”.
The Italian data, worrying, in Sardinia becomes a red alert. “The Island - is the analysis that comes from the Municipality of Lanusei - in 2012 recorded a birth rate among the 3 lowest in the country (7.6). According to Istat data, Sardinia showed a slight recovery in September 2020 with 796 births and a stable number of deaths and a natural balance of less than 580 units, the minimum recorded in the second half of 2020. After which the births resumed their decline until reaching in May 2021 the minimum number of births recorded for the year 2021 (608 births) with a natural balance of minus 729 units ”.
The death-born balance is worrying. Only in Tortolì and Girasole do pink-blue bows exceed the funeral. “The demographic statistics of Ogliastra - observes Cinzia Blumenthal - to date continue to report a constant decrease in births, except for a few municipalities which in any case do not register numbers capable of filling the great shortage that concerns almost the entire territory. According to Istat data from the 2011 census, the province of Ogliastra boasted 7 municipalities with an increase in population and 16 municipalities with a decrease in population, all in line with the regional situation which for the same period recorded 101 municipalities with an increase in population against 276 municipalities. with a decrease in the population ".
The Lanusei case continues to represent a paradigm of the current trend.
Migration movements to and from Lanusei from 2017 to today have recorded a drop in emigration after the peak of 2018 and a drop in immigration from the maximum recorded in 2017, when there was a boom in landings: one hundred and sixty-five immigrants compared to seventy-seven emigrants. In 2020 the trend was reversed: 109 emigrations against 89 new arrivals. In the current year and in 2020 - according to the civil status office of Lanusei - the most numerous migratory movements concerned travel to and from other Sardinian municipalities. In 2019, most of the emigrant residents moved out of the Region but remained within Italy, immigrants were also more numerous than emigrants, most of them coming from other Sardinian municipalities. In 2018, emigrations from Lanusei to other Sardinian municipalities and immigrations from other Sardinian municipalities in the municipality of Lanusei gave almost the same numbers. In general, excluding 2017 (the boom in immigration from abroad was significant, with the arrival of refugees from Libya, Ivory Coast and Senegal), "emigration and immigration from Lanusei to foreign countries - concludes Blumenthal - they show no significant changes and remain constant. It is always a question of just over a dozen registered units each year for both emigration and immigration ”.