Quality of life in rural areas at risk
Europe is at a turning point: the total population of the EU has been growing for decades, reaching around 450 million in 2025. According to EU projections, this growth is expected to peak around 2029 – after which the population is projected to gradually decline. The forecast trends vary greatly from one place to another. Nevertheless, the population of the entire European continent is expected to shrink as migration will no longer be able to compensate for the long-declining birth rates.
A recent forecast by the German Economic Institute (IW) reaches a similar conclusion. Germany’s population is likely to start shrinking earlier than previously anticipated, largely due to lower-than-expected immigration.
Leo van Wissen, demographic researcher at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, highlights the different pace of demographic change across European countries and regions. He expects that “especially regional differences within countries will intensify, with strong growth in urban areas while rural areas continue to dwindle.”
As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to maintain services in sparsely populated rural areas. Railway stations, schools, bank branches and bakeries are closing due to a lack of customers and staff shortages. This, in turn, threatens to reduce quality of life for people living in the countryside.
“The ageing of European societies is the greatest challenge,” demographer Claudia Neu tells CORRECTIV.Europe. “We are facing enormous healthcare and long-term care costs, which will likely have to be borne by the younger generation.”
Without immigration, EU population would already be shrinking
The JRC categorises the prospects of the member states into three groups.
Western and Northern Europe are benefiting from migration from outside the EU and from other EU member states.
In southern Europe, Italy and Spain are attracting non-EU migrants but are simultaneously experiencing some emigration to other EU countries as well as extremely low birth rates of around 1.3 births per woman, whereby their populations are expected to shrink in the long term.
Eastern Europe faces a triple demographic threat: low birth rates, ageing populations and significant emigration to Western Europe. Although these countries are gaining some population due to immigration from non-EU countries, these gains are not sufficient to compensate for their losses.
Without immigration, the total population of the EU would already have been shrinking since 2012. Experts interviewed by CORRECTIV.Europe agree that insufficient immigration poses a risk to the economy. A study by the Centre for European Reform reaches the same conclusion.
However, unlike asylum policy, there is no common EU approach to labour migration. Instead, there is a patchwork of around 300 different regulations across member states.
Even right-leaning governments are now developing targeted recruitment programmes for selected migrants. Italy, for example, plans to recruit 10,000 care workers from India.
Efforts to raise birth rates
Concerns about ageing and declining populations have triggered intense debate about birth rates in many countries.
France, for example, plans to send letters to all 29-year-olds encouraging them to think about starting a family at an early stage.
In Hungary, families receive special loans and financial support if they have multiple children within a certain timeframe.
Albert Esteve, Director of the Spanish Center for Demographic Studies, also sees challenges for democracy in the population trend: He poses a poignant question: „If a mayor is faced with the choice of providing money for free childcare, would his decision be influenced by the fact that most of the mothers are foreigners without voting rights?“
Text and research: Lilith Grull, Frida Thurm
Data and visualisation: Ada Homolova, Luc Martinon
Web development: Philipp Waack
Design: Max Bornmann, Mostafa Negm
Editing: Justus von Daniels, Marius Münstermann
Factchecking: Johannes Gille, Marius Münstermann, Philipp Waack