Italy’s national statistics institute, Istat, is predicting that the country will see a significant decline in births in the years immediately following the coronavirus pandemic.

In a report, Istat said that the climate of uncertainty and fear caused by the coronavirus may result in 10,000 fewer births in Italy in 2020 and 2021. It also predicted that if unemployment rises as expected, the birth rate could drop even further.

In 2019, births in Italy already hit a historic low since Italian unification in 1861. Across Europe, countries are facing what has been dubbed a “demographic winter.”

Pope Francis has described this as the dramatic result of a “disregard for families.” Europe’s devastatingly low birth rate “is a sign of societies that struggle to face the challenges of the present, and thus become ever more fearful of the future, with the result that they close in on themselves,” the pope said in 2018.

That year, Italy’s birth rate was 1.29 children per woman — just ahead of Malta and Spain’s rates of 1.23 and 1.26 respectively for the lowest rate in Europe.