The ageing Belgian population will increase until 2040, and then stabilise thereafter. The findings emerge from the demographic projections for 2017 to 2070, produced by the Federal Planning Bureau. According to the assumptions of the institution, for every one person aged 67 or more there will be 2.6 people in the 18 to 66 age bracket, compared to the current one for every four.
This increase followed by stabilisation may be explained by the disappearance by then of the baby-boomers, born after the Second World War.
This presumes that the assumptions of the Federal Planning Bureau are confirmed. These include international migration of foreigners tending towards 120,000 immigrants for every 100,000 emigrants per year, life expectancy reaching 90 years for women and 88 for men in 2070, with an average of 1.9 children per woman. The projections thus estimate that Belgium will have, in a little over 50 years, 13.4 million inhabitants.
Population growth in the Brussels-Capital region (+22%) will be higher both than in Wallonia (+16.6%) and in Flanders (+19.6%). The Federal Planning Bureau indicates, “Brussels attracts a significant proportion of foreign immigrants and this population includes numerous people of child-bearing age.” It goes on, “The population age structure is and remains, in the Federal Planning Bureau projections, markedly younger than the population in the other two regions.”
The projections indicate that Flanders stands to gain, even more than the other two regions of Belgium, from inter-regional migration.
The Brussels Times
