Europe's population crisis: see how your country compares
The rise of the far-right could speed up the population decline of Europe, projections show, creating economic shocks including slower growth and soaring costs from pensions and elderly care.
Anti-immigration politics is on the rise across the EU, as shown by the gains made by far-right parties in the 2024 elections. Meanwhile, the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is polling second in the run-up to the German federal election this month.
But those wanting to shut Europe's borders must contend with a stark demographic reality: the continent's native population is expected to fall sharply over the next century in an era of low birth rates.
Experts warn that European societies will age more quickly without immigration, bringing forward a host of economic challenges as workforces shrink and care burdens grow.
'Most politicians on the centre-left and centre-right recognise that immigration is needed to ease demographic pressures,' said John Springford, an associate fellow at the Centre for European Reform thinktank. 'They have sought to focus on tougher – and often inhumane – asylum rules in the hope that stricter border enforcement will provide political cover for higher regular immigration.
'But radical right parties are increasingly challenging the mainstream consensus. Those countries that manage to hold the line against demands to cut working-age immigration will be in a stronger position economically in the long run.'
The latest projections produced by Eurostat, the EU's official statistics agency, suggest that the bloc's population will be 6% smaller by 2100 based on current trends – falling to 419 million, from 447 million today.
But that decline pales in comparison with Eurostat's scenario without immigration. The agency projects a population decline of more than a third, to 295 million by 2100, when it excludes immigration from its modelling.
Eurostat's baseline projections assume countries will maintain their average net migration levels from the past 20 years, but the Guardian has examined figures also published by the agency with this assumption left out.
Likewise, the UK's Office for National Statistics publishes population projections that include a zero net migration scenario.
Italy, France and Germany, where anti-immigration politicians have recently made inroads, would face big population declines in a zero-immigration scenario.
Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has made cracking down on migration a priority in her first term, but her country has one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe and its population would more than halve by the end of the century under zero immigration.
In Germany, where the anti-immigration AfD is polling second, the population could shrink from 83 million to 53 million over the next 80 years if its borders were completely closed.
And in France, where the National Rally won the first round of legislative elections last summer after campaigning for restrictions on incoming people, a zero-immigration scenario would mean a population fall from 68 million to 59 million.
Only a handful of EU states would notice little difference from closed borders: Romania, Latvia and Lithuania, all countries that have experienced a net outflow of people.
Instead, in most of Europe, populations would not only shrink in the absence of current immigration levels, but also become older as the number of working-age people fall relative to elderly people.
Today, 21% of the EU population is aged 65 or over. In Eurostat's baseline scenario, this proportion will rise to 32% by 2100, but in the agency's zero-immigration scenario, it will increase further, to 36%.
Those studying Europe's changing age pyramid say this will put countries under increasing economic pressure.
'The main consequences will be slower growth because the labour force will shrink, and higher tax burdens, because pension spending and the demand for health and elderly care will rise,' said Springford.
Indeed, much of the EU is already seeing this, with tax burdens – as expressed through tax revenue as a percentage of GDP – climbing in counties such as France, Italy, Germany and Spain in recent decades.
The health and social care industries will become increasingly important for managing an ageing Europe, and many health systems in the EU are already dependent on immigrant doctors or nurses.
'More people are going to require care, though that does depend on how healthy people are in old age, and how much care they need,' said Alan Manning, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
'You also have the other side of the equation that because of fewer children, because of low fertility rates, you need fewer people in education and childcare. So what we need to be doing, in some sense, is redistributing people who were caring for children to caring for old people.'
At the same time, experts stress that immigration is not a silver bullet for Europe's demographic challenges, instead suggesting it is one of many solutions, or at least a way to ease the transition to an older society.
'Increasing immigration levels will not solve these demographic problems on their own – the levels required to do so would be very large, and there are only so many migrants who are willing to move,' said Springford.
'But they would help, as would raising employment rates of working-age people, pushing back the age of retirement, reforming pensions and shifting the burden of taxation from labour income to wealth, especially property.'
Manning added: 'For immigration to help, it's got to be that immigrants are actually in work, and many European countries have quite low employment rates among a lot of immigrants. So you can't take that as a given. If you had an immigrant who came in and didn't work and then needed support, for welfare, that wouldn't make things better, that would make things worse. So it's really important that they're going to be in work, and that has been problematic in some cases.'
Within national borders, rural areas will bear the brunt of the EU's coming population decline. Over the next 80 years, more villages could suffer the same fate as Camini in southern Italy.
The village is one of many in the Calabria region where the population declined sharply later in the 20th century as younger residents moved elsewhere for opportunities.
Camini has recently become the site of a project that is resettling refugees, in an attempt to bring the community back from extinction. It was cited in a recent Council of Europe report written by the Labour MP Kate Osamor that examined the potential of immigration to alleviate the challenges of an ageing population.
'I was watching the place slowly dying. The houses were just falling down because no one was living in them,' said Rosario Zurzolo, who was born in Camini and is now the president of the cooperative running the resettlement project, Eurocoop Servizi.
So far, 50 refugees have settled permanently in Camini under the scheme, bringing the village population to 350, while a further 118 refugees are being temporarily hosted. A symbolic achievement for the scheme was the recent re-opening of the local school.
Zurzolo says Camini can act as a model to help revitalise other European regions experiencing population decline.
Serena Franco, who is also part of the Camini project and presented evidence to the Council of Europe for its report, added: 'They're bringing knowledge, and now we are starting to grow with them and to make new things, new processes, new jobs as well that would be impossible without them.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economist
41 minutes ago
- Economist
Europe wants to show it's ready for war. Would anyone show up to fight?
Nice tanks you got there, Europe—got anyone to drive 'em? Such are the taunts the continent's generals might have to endure following the announcement of a splurge in defence spending expected from the NATO summit in The Hague on June 24th-25th. Assuming European governments don't bin their commitments to bigger defence budgets once some kind of peace is agreed to in Ukraine—or Donald Trump leaves the White House—spending on their armed forces will roughly double within a decade. A disproportionate slug of the jump from a 2% of GDP spending target to 3.5% will go towards purchasing equipment. But armies are about people, too. Attracting youngsters to a career that involves getting shot at has never been easy; a bit of forceful nagging (known in military jargon as 'conscription') is already on the cards in some countries. Even dragooning recalcitrant teens into uniform will not solve a problem that is lurking deep in the continent's psyche. Europeans are proud of their peaceful ways. If war breaks out there, will anybody be there to fight it?
South Wales Guardian
2 hours ago
- South Wales Guardian
EU review ‘paints grim picture' of Israel's actions in Gaza, Irish premier says
The Taoiseach said the report highlights the restriction of food and medicines into Gaza, which he said 'amounts to the use of starvation as a method of war'. The EU-Israel Association Agreement is being reviewed after a dozen EU member states backed it last month. The unpublished report has found that there are 'indications' Israel could be in breach of its human rights obligations under the agreement, according to several media outlets. Reacting on Saturday, Mr Martin welcomed the 'substantive and important' report on Israel's compliance with its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel deal. He said Ireland had 'long argued' that clauses on human rights in the EU's international agreement 'have to be respected' and should prompt 'serious consequences' when they are not. Back in February 2024, Ireland and Spain jointly called for an urgent review of whether Israel had breached its human rights obligations in the trade agreement. A majority of EU countries did not back the review until last month, prompted by a proposal from The Netherlands. The shift came amid Israel's months-long blockade of Gaza, which has accelerated fears of a famine. A new Israeli and US-backed aid system has been marred by violence. Israel's 20-month military campaign in the the Palestinian enclave has killed an estimated 55,000 people and injured thousands more, according to Gaza's health ministry. Mr Martin said: 'I very much welcome the substantive and important report of the EU's High Representative for Human Rights on Israel's compliance with its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel Association Agreement. 'Bringing together the reports and analysis of serious, credible and reliable sources – including the International Court of Justice, the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict and others – it paints a clear and grim picture of a sustained and deliberate failure by Israel to adhere to its international obligations, especially in Gaza but also in the West Bank. 'It highlights a continued restriction of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other vital supplies into Gaza that amount to collective punishment of the civilian population, that amounts to the use of starvation as a method of war. 'It describes an unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians in Gaza resulting from indiscriminate attacks without proportion or precaution, as well as attacks on hospitals, forced mass displacements and the killing of journalists. All of this with a persistent lack of accountability. 'In the West Bank, it reports sustained oppression of the Palestinian population, including through state and settler violence, the appropriation of land, and the use of detention as a form of collective punishment.' He added: 'We will now work with partners to follow up on this important report with concrete steps, and I will be discussing it with my colleagues in the European Council when we meet next week.'
Daily Mirror
2 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Trump's quiet bid for Iran talks failed as 'nobody could get Ayatollah on phone'
Trump had reportedly been working with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to try and secure talks between US and Iranian officials in Istanbul this week Donald Trump's bid to quietly arrange a meeting with Iran was scuppered after nobody could get the Ayatollah on the phone, it has been reported. According to US news site Axios, Trump had been working with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to try and secure talks between US and Iranian officials in Istanbul this week. But Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is in hiding and couldn't be reached to approve the talks. It comes amid reports B-2 stealth bombers had left a US air base - apparently heading towards Guam or Diego Garcia. The B-2 Spirit is the only aircraft capable of delivering the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, also known as the bunker buster bomb. Trump told reporters on Friday that he is giving Iran a "period of time" to come to the table - and that he'd make a decision on whether to join strikes on Tehran's nuclear capabilities in the next two weeks. "I'm giving 'em a period of time. We're gonna see what that period of time is. And I would say two weeks would be the maximum," he said at an airfield in New Jersey, en route to his Bedminster golf club. He's set to come back from the resort this evening, to return to the White House Situation Room for more briefings on the conflict. The phone call with Erdogan reportedly took place last Monday, when Trump was meeting G7 leaders in Canada. Axios reports Trump agreed to send Vice President JD Vance and White House envoy Steve Witkoff - and possibly travel to Turkey himself to meet with Iran's leadership. Talks between European ministers and Iran's top diplomat failed to stop a fresh round of strikes today. Friday's talks, which aimed at de-escalating the fighting between the two adversaries, lasted for four hours in Geneva, but failed to produce a breakthrough. European officials expressed hope for future negotiations. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he was open to further dialogue but stressed Tehran wasn't interested in negotiating with the US while Israel continued attacking. A senior adviser for Khamenei, vowed in a social media post Saturday to make the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency 'pay' once the war with Israel is over. Ali Larijani's threat comes as IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has become a major target for many Iranian officials who say his conflicting statements about the status of Iran's nuclear program incited the Israeli surprise attack last week. Grossi told the United Nations' Security Council Friday that while Iran has the material to build a nuclear bomb, it appears they have no plans to do so.
