National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT

Population register, demographic statistics and life conditions

ISTAT - Viale Liegi 13, 00198 Roma . Italy

Total usually resident population for the purposes of qualified majority voting in the Council.

The official resident population of Italy at 31th December year t is released by Istat usually in June of the year t+1. The related data and metadata are usually sent to Eurostat in occasion of the DEMOBAL data collection. Basically, the official resident population for Italy and his territories is obtained adding up to the population collected in the last Census (October, 9th 2011), the demographic flows (births, deaths, immigration, emigration) that occurred between the Census's date and the reference time of the new data collection. The population count is produced for every Municipality, while for higher-level territorial units (Nuts3, Nuts2, exc.) the results are obtained by aggregation.

With regard to the population to be provided under the art.4 of the Reg. 1260/2013, there is a slight difference between the official population released by Istat and the one as defined by the article 2d which contains a strict definition of the usual residence's concept. In particular, the difference regards what is stated under paragraph (ii) of the article 2d (" those who arrived in their place of usual residence during the 12 months before the reference time with the intention of staying there for at least one year"), given that in Italy a simple "intention of staying" doesn't represent a sufficient requirement to be enrolled in a Population Register of a Municipality for non national citizens. Actually, people of EU countries must demonstrate an income for sustaining themselves economically and have a house to live, while for Non EU citizens the initial requirement is the possession of a valid residence permit.

In order to assess which specific population groups have to be included in addition to the official resident population of Italy, provided that the conditions of duration of residence are met, the CES Recommendations for the execution of the 2010 Censuses (Geneva, 2006) were examined. The analysis revealed that the following groups of people are not actually covered in the official population of Italy:

a) National military, naval and diplomatic personnel and their families located outside the country (MD)

b) Persons who may be illegal, irregular or undocumented migrants (IL)

c) EU workers with a regular employment contract who are not also present in the population register and who have spent most of the year in Italy (at least 7 months or at least 6 months including December 2022) (AC)

d) non-EU citizens with regular permit of stay (lasting more than one year) who are not also present in the population register (Ukrainian citizens under temporary protection excluded) (AX)

e) Ukrainian citizens under temporary protection who are not also present in the population register (UK)

The other recommended groups of population, to be or not to be included, are already present in the national definition (e.g. Homeless or roofless persons) or not considered (e.g. Tertiary students attending courses abroad).

Then, the Qualified majority voting population (QMVP) is obtained as follows:

QMVP=P+MD+IL+AC+AX+UK

where P is the official resident population of Italy.

As concerns MD data come from databases maintained at three different Ministries: the Ministry of Economicy and Finance (http://www.contoannuale.tesoro.it), the Ministry of Defence (http://www.difesa.it) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (http://www.esteri.it).

The number of IL is estimated by integrating information from different sources that are available in Italy, part of which are collected outside the NSI. A first source is a survey sample operated by the ISMU Foundation in Lombardy that fits into the framework of the activities of the Regional Observatory for Integration and Multiethnicity (ORIM). Such a survey collects information on the foreign population present in the region, regardless of the legal status and administrative place of residence of the individuals. The sources of data collected by Istat and implemented in the model of estimation are the National Account Statistics on irregular labor forces and the Statistics on the foreign resident population by single citizenship. The different datasets are integrated in order to assess the quantitative dimension of the foreign presence, specifying the condition of regularity / irregularity in relation to the Population registers.

The estimation model is built on the basis of two explanatory variables: citizenship and region of residence. The estimate is obtained in two steps: a preliminary estimate at regional level using only the data of Lombardy by citizenship, followed by a final regional estimate that is adjusted for the region of residence. The number of illegals for Italy as a whole is obtained summing up the regional data.

The initial focus of the model is based on the rates of irregularity (number of illegals divided by total number of official residents) by single citizenship of Lombardy, whose distribution is applied to each single region. In this first step there is a control for the citizenship. In the second one, in order to take into account the fact that to different regions correspond different global levels of irregularity, there is a control for the region of residence. A regional corrector of the estimates obtained in the first step is then implemented on the basis of a proxy variable, that is the regional distribution of the percentage of irregular workers. Using the time-series available for Lombardy (from 2001), a strong correlation with R=0.86 is observed between the number of irregular workers and the number of irregular foreign people.

The AC and AX components in equation QMVP, regard groups of foreign citizens not overlapping the previous ones. They include both EU and Non EU citizens, not enrolled in any population register but fulfilling the concept of at least a year of effective/intended usual residence in the Country. The residual of foreign Non EU citizens has been obtained running a record linkage between the Individual List of Resident Citizens maintained at Istat (ANVIS) and the Permits of stay database, while the residual of foreign EU citizens has been obtained running a record linkage between ANVIS and the Archive of the security contributions of workers, maintained at INPS - National Institute of Social Security.

The last component, UK, concerns Ukrainian citizens who are not also on the population register. It was obtained through a record linkage between ANVIS and the residence permit archive.

Not applicable.

Total usual residence population at national level.

QMVP=P+MD+IL+AC+AX+UK

where P is the official resident population of Italy (provisional, last update July 2023). The other groups of people not actually covered in the official population of Italy are:

a) Military and diplomatic personnel located outside national borders (MD);

b) Illegal, irregular, undocumented people (IL);

c) EU workers with a regular employment contract who are not also present in the population register and who have spent most of the year in Italy (at least 7 months or at least 6 months including December 2022) (AC);

d) Non-EU citizens with regular permit of stay (lasting more than one year) who are not also present in the population register (Ukrainian citizens under temporary protection excluded)(AX)

e) Ukrainian citizens under temporary protection who are not also present in the population register (UK)

Person.

A sample survey was used in order to assess the irregular component of the usual residence population (see point 3.1).

Data are available at national level of geographical detail.

31 December 2022

Not applicable.

Person.

The reference date for population data is the end of the reference period (midnight of 31 December).

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Annual.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Please fill the information in the Annex File. 

Not applicable.

As concerns the official resident population (see point 3.1 Data description) data are checked before being uploaded into the database and disseminated to the public. The validation rules are established to ensure the data consistency and comparability along time of indicators. As concerns the other databases and samples used in order to derive the QMVP standard rules of data checking and validation are applied.

Data requested in Art. 4.1 of Reg. 1260/2013.

Not applicable.

Data transmitted as requested in Art. 4.1 of Reg. 1260/2013.

see point 3.1 Data description.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

For the purposes of qualified majority voting in the Council, Member States shall provide the Commission (Eurostat) with data on the total population at national level at the reference time, in accordance with Article 2 ( c ), within eight months of the end of the reference year.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The total usual residence population  transmitted by the national statistical offices to Eurostat in the framework of the Usual Residence Population data collection may differ from those available in National Accounts, Labour Force Survey or in the survey on Income and Living Conditions. The difference is given by the population coverage (see metadata specific to each domain).

The total usual residence population  transmitted by the national statistical offices to Eurostat in the framework of the Usual Residence Population data collection may differ from those available in the rest of the Demographic domain. The difference is given by the population definition (see metadata specific to each domain).

The definition of a metodology to the QMVP purposes and the related elaborations requested 1 full time person for five months.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

See point 3.1 Data description.

Annual.

See point 3.1 Data description.

Coherence control between data from different sources and surveys.

Data from Istat are generally collected through electronic internet forms.

The final result of the above described procedure shows that for Italy the Qualified Majority Voting Population is given by:

QMVP=P+MD+IL+AC+AX+UK.

The impact of the adjustment in order to obtain the QMVP from the national definition of usual residence is about one per cent.

No further comments.