Swedes are becoming more numerous — despite the crisis alarms

The debate about declining birth rates has once again raised concerns about a Swedish population crisis. But according to IFFS demography researcher Martin Kolk, the alarms are exaggerated. History shows that similar fears have returned time and again — in the 1930s, the 1970s and the 1990s — each time with the same message: No children are being born! We are going to run out of people.

– In orderly fashion, we have been able to find on our bookshelves Crisis in the Population Question (1934), New Crisis in the Population Question (1962), New Crisis in the Population Question (2001), and New Crisis in the Population Question (2025). [...] It is easy to get the impression that we are also in a population crisis today. In that case, Statistics Sweden’s latest forecast may make some people raise their eyebrows. It shows that Sweden’s population will increase by 6 percent by 2050 and by 18 percent by 2100. In other words: more Swedes, not fewer.

– A favorable age structure, declining mortality and continued immigration more than compensate for a slightly declining birth rate, Martin Kolk writes in Dagens Nyheter.

The number of children born has also been relatively stable in recent decades. It has varied between about 90,000 and 116,000 per year, and is expected to be around 105,000 in 2035. This may create practical problems for municipalities planning preschool places, but according to Kolk it is far from an existential crisis.

There are, however, countries with a more prolonged trend of low birth rates where concern is more justified. In South Korea, newborn birth cohorts are less than one third the size of the cohorts born around 1960.

– Low birth rates in East Asia and Southern Europe are easier to understand than the trends of recent years in Sweden. Many young Swedes would almost certainly also stop having children if they were subjected to Korean working hours and family policy.

Martin Kolk’s conclusion is that Sweden, with one of Europe’s youngest populations, has little reason for age panic. Children continue to be born — despite the alarms.