This Atlas of Demography digital story gives a summary account of insights from a JRC study, presenting results from analyses examining territorial population decline by progressively zooming in from national, to regional and local levels.
A chapter of the report Much More Than a Market by Enrico Letta (April 2024) includes reflections on how the free movement principles of the single market may inadvertently contribute to demographic decline. While the EU's single market has enabled economic mobility and opportunity, it has also created the potential for a drain of working aged people from disadvantaged regions to more prosperous areas in other regions.
Acknowledging these challenges, the Letta report proposes to enhance measures for the single market to address the demographic and economic imbalances affecting EU competitiveness and sustainability. The objective is to empower the people in the EU to reside in a location of their free choice, a principle also reflected in the political guidelines of the Von der Leyen Commission 2024-2029 as “the right to stay in the place they call home”.
"We will address regional and social disparities and ensure all citizens have an effective right to stay in the place they call home."
A new report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) discusses the premise of right to stay in the context of demographic changes in EU regions, presenting results from a study examining territorial population decline by progressively zooming in from national, to regional and local levels.
This Atlas of Demography story gives a summary account of insights from the JRC study. Following the analytical path from national to local, we bring the reader on a journey of exploration that gradually moves from the macro level towards the intricacies of demographic characteristic in local communities within the regions of the EU.
We begin our analysis at the national level. This allows us to examine the demographic processes of the EU at the macro level. Before zooming in to observe the drivers of population change and mobility in the regions, we need to consider the fundamental demographic forces at play.
The EU population is projected to peak within the current decade before entering a sustained decline, driven primarily by consistently falling fertility rates. Since 2012, deaths have exceeded births across the Union, creating a natural population decrease that has thus far been offset by international migration flows into Europe.
As individual EU countries face these shared pressures, a process of convergence emerges. National fertility, mortality and migration patterns are gradually aligning, pulling demographic characteristics toward increasingly similar levels across Europe. However, beneath this harmonisation lies a striking paradox: regional population differences continue to widen dramatically, as current age structures and settlement patterns carry a momentum that will take decades to shift. In other words, populations that have an old age structure will continue to have a growing proportion of older people for the coming decades. This consequence of demographic inertia cannot be reversed in the near future by stopping emigration of younger people and/or increased fertility rates as the current age structure of each region remains the primary driver of population changes in the medium term.
Indeed, this growing division between regions in terms of age distribution is visible in future population projections by Eurostat. The Old age dependency ratio (OADR) quantifies population ageing by comparing seniors aged 65 and above, to the working-age population aged from 15 to 64 years. Analyses conducted as part of the JRC study indicate that even if regional migrations were completely halted (i.e. no migration in or out of a region), the distance between regions with the youngest and the oldest populations would continue to grow until the 2040s and only start to converge in the 2050s (see figure below).
Europe is thus experiencing two simultaneous realities: converging demographic trends across countries, alongside diverging regional populations within them. This dual dynamic presents an important consideration. Understanding the momentum driving regional divergence is essential for the development of long-term measures to address Europe's emerging patterns of regional depopulation.
Figure 1. The projected difference in variation in age structure (OADR) compared to the situation in 2025. The increase in difference illustrates the growing convergence between regions. JRC analysis.
The blue line shows the variance in age structure (the distance between the oldest and the youngest population within the EU) based on population projections. The orange line shows a hypothetical scenario that assumes there would be no migration in or out of the region (zero net migration). Also in this counterfactual scenario, the variance would continue to grow for the coming decade, illustrating the continuation of demographic divergence between sub-national level regions in the EU.
Our exploration of regional migrations begins with an examination of how economic circumstances shape population movements. As emphasised by the Letta report, a substantial part of territorial differences and trends for demographic decline in certain regions can be explained by the emigration of youth.
To examine how mobility is influenced by economic circumstances, the study by the JRC estimated the effect of the differences in GDP per capita between the region of origin and of destination on intra-regional migrations for different age groups. The results indicate that economic reasons are a driver in particular for the migration of youth. Furthermore, the JRC study shows that people leaving poorer regions tend to emigrate to richer regions within the same country rather than to other countries. As people move from rural or peripheral areas to cities and urban agglomerations in search of better job opportunities and living standards, they primarily do so within their country.
Our investigation then ventures deeper into the demographic landscape using data from local administrative units (LAU) to understand the impact of migration on population change at a more detailed level. While direct migration data were not available at this geographical scale, the study used data from three census rounds spanning two decades (2001-2021) to calculate net migration estimates. These estimates were used to determine what portion of population changes could be attributed to people moving in and out of regions, broken down by different age groups. Through analyses by degree of urbanisation (DEGURBA), the study further examined the demographic differences between different types of settlements.
This granular approach unveiled the patterns of human movement across the lifecycle. The data reveals that migration patterns follow predictable life stages: young people aged 20-24 gravitate toward cities, drawn by educational opportunities, career prospects and lifestyle choices. As individuals progress through life, their movement patterns reverse direction. Middle-aged adults begin relocating away from urban centres, with those aged 35 to 39 settling in towns and suburbs, and people in their mid-forties move toward rural areas – movements likely influenced by family formation decisions and changing housing preferences.
Throughout this lifecycle of movement, proximity to major cities emerges as a key organising principle. Proximity to urban centres attract an influx of young people, but this effect gradually diminishes with increasing distance and age.
As we proceed with the analyses of the LAU-level data, we obtain more detailed insights of the demographic divergence within the regions both in the patterns of TFR and age structure (see figures).
The twenty-year trajectory of population change reveals shifting patterns across the EU's three main regional categories. The census data indicate that suburban towns and suburban regions initially outpaced cities in attracting new residents during the opening decade, yet this advantage reversed as cities regained momentum in the latter half of the period. Rural areas followed a different path entirely, experiencing consistent population losses relative to cities throughout both decades, with these declines intensifying during the second decade.
The comparison of the data from the different census rounds on an aggregate EU level holds several limitations such as reclassification of regions in terms of urbanisation degree, changes in territorial boundaries, the inclusion of new member states. This temporal analysis on the aggregate level primarily illustrates that urbanisation and suburbanisation trends may shift direction over time.
Age structure provides another lens through which these demographic patterns emerge. When old age dependency ratio (OADR) is stratified by urbanisation degree, a clear hierarchy becomes apparent: towns and suburbs consistently house larger shares of older residents than cities, while rural areas concentrate even higher proportions of older inhabitants. This progression underscores how age distribution varies systematically across settlement types.
Local geography adds a crucial dimension to understanding these demographic forces. Analysis of travel times from urban centres reveals that LAUs within 40-50 minutes of major cities maintain notably lower OADRs – reflecting younger, more working-age populations – than more remote locations. This temporal threshold aligns precisely with conventional commuting distance definitions, indicating that practical accessibility considerations fundamentally shape where people choose to live and work.
These findings converge on a key insight: local demographic characteristics respond more directly to connectivity with urban centres than to traditional rural-urban classifications. Rather than settlement type alone, it is proximity and accessibility to cities (and services cities offer) that most powerfully influence population composition and change across European communities.
Our analysis has taken our examination of population change from the national level to the most local contexts. The data analysed in the study at different levels of geographical detail indicate that the migration patterns, which are contributing to territorial demographics, are complex and respond to different drivers depending on the scale of analysis.
At the regional level, young people emigrate from economically disadvantaged areas primarily towards more prosperous communities, not only abroad, but also within the same country. At the local level, people migrate between urban and rural settings and centres of cities and peripheries within the commuting zones in accordance with the stage of life that they are in.
Furthermore, current regional population projections by Eurostat indicate that even in a theoretical scenario where the outflux of the working-aged was completely halted, on the local level the divide between regions in terms of old age dependency would continue to increase for the coming decades due to demographic inertia. The results from the JRC study indicate that the disproportionate ageing of the population in certain areas cannot be altered in the short term by measures targeting demographic drivers. This highlights the importance of regional policies and support mechanisms aimed at adapting to current demographic circumstances rather than at attempting to reverse them.
Measures aimed at directly affecting demographic drivers (e.g. incentives for working-aged people to settle in less populated areas) are important but alone will not address the immediate challenges ahead. Regions experiencing population loss and ageing need support to manage the imminent realities of ageing populations by the provisioning of targeted services such as health care and housing. For example, by considering long-term population developments in educational programmes and workforce planning as well as investing in policies and practices that promote healthy ageing, Member States can help local regions strengthen their resilience as their populations continue to age.
The total fertility rate is defined as the mean number of children (live births) who would be born to a woman during her lifetime, if she were to spend her childbearing years conforming to the age-specific fertility rates, that have been measured in a given year.
NUTS regions: NUTS (Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics) are the reference countries’ regions for statistical purposes adopted by the EU. There are four levels of NUTS ranging from 0 (countries) to 3. This story builds on NUTS-3 region level. For more information see Eurostat: NUTS - Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics .
LAU regions: To meet the demand for statistics at a local level, Eurostat maintains a system of local administrative units (LAUs) compatible with NUTS. These LAUs are the building blocks of NUTS and comprise the EU’s municipalities and communes. For more information see Eurostat: Local administrative units (LAU) .
Definition by Eurostat: The degree of urbanisation classifies local administrative units (LAUs) as cities, towns and suburbs or rural areas based on a combination of geographical contiguity and population density, measured by minimum population thresholds applied to 1 km² population grid cells; each LAU belongs exclusively to one of these three classes.
The categories are defined as follows:
Urban areas refers to an aggregate composed of information covering cities as well as towns and suburbs (in other words, densely populated areas and intermediate density areas).
For more information see Eurostat Statistics Explained glossary – Degree of urbanisation
Net migration is the difference between the number of immigrants (influx of people) and the number of emigrants (outflux of people). In the context of the study described in the story, net migration was estimated at the LAU level across the EU27 for two intercensal periods: 2001–2011 and 2011–2021. This was done based on population counts at the LAU level by 5-year age group and sex from the 2001, 2011, and 2021 censuses, coupled with Eurostat’s annual data on population and deaths at NUTS2 level by age and sex.
The old-age dependency ratio is the ratio of the number of elderly people at an age when they are generally economically inactive, compared to the number of people of working age. The study described in this story defines OADR as the population aged above 65 related to the population of working age, between 20 and 65 years of age (above 65 / 20-65).
ALESSANDRINI, A., BERNINI, A., DEUSTER, C., ENDRICH, M., NATALE, F. et al., Demographic outlook on "right to stay" - Beyond the Letta report, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2025, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/4989571, JRC142835.
14 Oct 2025 | 05 Nov 2025
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