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By 2040, Austria’s population will grow to 9.4 million. After that, a decline is expected. The growth is due to migration.
Austria’s population is expected to continue growing until 2040. Statistics Austria announced this on Wednesday morning at a press conference at the APA Press Center.
“The peak will then be reached with around 9.4 million inhabitants, before the population is expected to decline to 9.1 million by 2080,” said Manuela Lenk, Director General of Statistics. This trend is accompanied by progressive ageing, she said.
By 2040: Proportion of people over 65 will increase to 26 percent
The proportion of people over 65 is expected to increase from 20 percent to more than 26 percent by 2040. According to Statistics Austria, the projected growth until 2040 is based exclusively on expected migration gains. In the long term, an additional 28,000 to 43,000 people per year are expected as a result of migration.
However, this increase will no longer be able to compensate for an expected negative birth rate (more deaths than births) at the turning point, explained Lenk and her colleague Pauline Pohl, project manager for demographic forecasts at Statistics Austria.
This is because the number of deaths will continue to exceed the number of newborn babies in the coming years. By 2040, an average annual birth rate of around minus 23,000 babies is expected, and in 2040, Statistics Austria expects a birth rate of around minus 29,000.
Number of people of working age will shrink
As Lenk and Pohl predicted on Wednesday, there are expected to be more than 2.46 million people over the age of 65 in 15 years. In contrast, the number of people of working age is expected to shrink by around 256,000 by 2040. The proportion of people under the age of 20 in the total population, on the other hand, will decrease only slightly from 19.2 percent last year to 17.3 percent in 2040.
Uneven regional distribution of population growth
The 2.5 percent population growth expected by 2040 will be distributed very unevenly across regions. According to Statistics Austria, above-average growth is expected in Vienna due to migration. The federal capital currently accounts for more than a third of international immigration to Austria. In addition to Vienna (plus 9.2 percent), population growth is also forecast for Vorarlberg (plus 3.7 percent), Upper Austria (plus 2.2 percent), and Lower Austria (plus 1.5 percent) by 2040. At the same time, Carinthia is expected to see a population decline of minus 3.5 percent. In the other federal states, the population is likely to remain largely stable according to the main scenario of the population forecast.
Austria in crisis: Only 47 percent of companies are satisfied with their business situation
High costs and a lack of personnel are currently causing many companies to lack international competitiveness. At the same time, only about a quarter will break even in 2025, which could have massive consequences in view of the increasing frequency of payment defaults.
On Wednesday, Pohl pointed out that population forecasts are naturally always subject to a certain degree of uncertainty. Various scenarios were therefore taken into account. However, a comparison shows that the ageing process of the population cannot be halted even by a sharp rise in births and a substantial increase in immigration.
- with reports from kurier.at/picture: pixabay.com
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