The European Union is nearing the limit of its demographic growth and will enter a sustained population decline for the remainder of the century, according to a report published Tuesday by the European Commission.
According to the Joint Research Centre (JRC), an agency of the Commission, the bloc currently has 450.6 million inhabitants and will reach its peak in 2029 at 453.3 million, before beginning a decline that is expected to continue.
By 2050 the population is projected to fall to 445 million and by the end of the century to 398.8 million, a level comparable to the second half of the 1970s.
That contraction — equivalent to an 11.7% loss from the projected peak — will occur alongside an apparently contradictory trend: Europeans are living longer than ever. Life expectancy averaged 81.5 years in 2024 (84.1 for women and 78.9 for men), and the report forecasts it will exceed 90 years for women and 86 years for men by 2100. A child born in the EU in 2023 can expect 75.3 years free of serious illness.
This increased longevity is changing the bloc’s age structure. Today, one in five Europeans is 65 or older; by 2050 that proportion is expected to be one in three. In absolute terms, the number of people who will require care is projected to rise from 36 million this year to 48 million in 2070, equivalent to 11% of the total population.
That growing dependency will fall on a shrinking workforce. The 15-to-64 age group is projected to decline by about 1.2 million people per year between 2025 and 2050, while roughly 20% of those of working age remain outside the labor market, including eight million young people who neither study, work, nor receive training.
The employment gap between women and men remains at 10 percentage points. Still, participation among older workers has increased: the share of employed people aged 55 to 64 rose by 13.5 percentage points for women and 12.2 for men over the past decade.
In this context, the European Commission acknowledges that immigration “plays an increasingly important role” in partly offsetting the decline in the working-age population, but warns that it cannot reverse the trend on its own. Attracting skilled migration, along with training and reskilling programs for current residents, improving productivity, and reducing unemployment are among the measures considered.
Aging also opens opportunities in the so-called silver economy — a sector focused on products and services for older adults, with innovations in health and technology — which is expected to see growing demand in the coming decades.
(With information from AFP and DPA)