The 8th Cohesion Report presents the main changes in territorial disparities in the EU over the past decade and how EU and national policies have affected those disparities.
Given the ageing baby boom in the EU, its population is very likely to start shrinking in the coming years because natural change will become too negative to be offset by migration. As a result more and more regions will have a shrinking population in the future. Already today, one out of three EU residents lives in a shrinking region. In in eastern EU regions, this is the case for two out of three residents.
The current age structure of the population, the increasing life expectancy and the relatively low fertility rates in the EU indicate that virtually all regions will experience a big increase in the population 65 and over and a reduction in young and working age population. Regions will have to adapt their services and infrastructure to this changes in the total population and their age distribution. Also firms will have to adapt to a shrinking working age population by investing more in labour augmenting and labour saving technologies.
On this page, you can explore a selection of interactive maps and figures on regional demographic trends:
(The full 8 Cohesion report report is available here.)
