Drivers of Population Change in Danish and Swedish Municipalities.

Óskar Daði Jóhannsson , Danish Center on Population Research, Interdisciplinary Center on Population Dynamics, University of Southern Denmark
Marie-Pier Bergeron-Boucher, Danish Center on Population Research, Interdisciplinary Center on Population Dynamics, University of Southern Denmark

Ageing populations have major socioeconomic repercussions for municipalities and subnational units across Europe. Both in Denmark and Sweden, municipalities have strong political authority, and are responsible for the provision of critical services, such as early childhood education, primary education, and elderly care. Ageing population structures impact the demand, funding, and delivery of social and welfare services by municipalities. It is, therefore, important to identify which municipalities are most vulnerable to the pressures of population ageing, and why. We explore what drives the differences in population growth among the municipalities in Denmark and Sweden and to what extent existing differences in age compositions across the municipalities are responsible for these differences. Using Danish and Swedish aggregated municipal data, we decompose population growth of the municipalities into three demographic components, birth, death, and migration, and include a component that measures the effect of age composition on individual municipalities in relation to population growth. We find that population growth and age structure are heavily linked to one another and largely determine migration patterns. More specifically, relatively older municipalities with negative contributions to growth from age structure also have a negative contribution from migration. On the other hand, younger municipalities with positive contributions of age structure component also tend to have a positive contribution from migration. Thus, rapidly ageing municipalities experience a double burden of both existing old-age structure and outmigration. Whereas birth and mortality components have smaller contributions to population growth of Danish and Swedish municipalities.

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 Presented in Session 25. Migration and Spatial Aspects of Ageing