Population projections for Switzerland 2015-2045
Considerable ageing of the population over the next 30 years
Federal Statistical Office, 22 June 2015
Today, the Swiss Federal Statistical Office released its demographic projections for this country until 2045, by which year according to the government’s statisticians the number of residents in Switzerland will have crossed the 10 million mark up from ‘8.2 million permanent residents at the end of 2014’ – which is their so-called ‘reference scenario’ (the Office’s lower and upper end projections are for 9.4 and 11.0 million inhabitants, respectively).
2045 is only a generation away, so the crossing of this highly symbolic number is for relatively soon. What I find even more mind-boggling is that, if I get to live as old as my mother is now, and based on the Swiss Federal Statistical Office’s ‘reference scenario’, I will have seen in my own lifetime an increase in the population of the country where I was born and where I have spent most of my life of over 30 percent.
Really, I cannot get over this. This increase is simply huge and so are the implications of such a population rise. So maybe it is time for me to read this essay (pro population growth) which I bought before an important and highly divisive vote that took place in this country in February of last year (and the same issue was again put to the ballot in November) – an essay that I could simply not get myself to read at the time…
Link
‘Scénarios de l’évolution de la population de la Suisse 2015-2045: scénarios de l’évolution de la population de la Suisse 2015-2045’ [in French], Federal Statistical Office, 22 June 2015