Romania could lose a quarter of its population by 2080, report shows

Romania’s population could reach 14.36 million people in 2080, down from slightly over 19 million in 2025, which would mean a reduction of 4.6 million people, or almost a quarter of the population, according to an analysis carried out by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) in the study ‘Projection of Romania’s active population by the horizon of the year 2080,’ cited by Agerpres.

The projection is one of three versions, namely the ‘benchmark variant,’ which keeps unchanged the levels of fertility, life expectancy, and net migration recorded in 2024 for each county. This variant enables the comparison of results and evaluation of developments in the absence of significant demographic changes.

Conversely, the medium variant, considered the most probable, is based on recent trends of the main demographic components. The last variant, the optimistic one, is based on improved fertility and life expectancy and highlights the maximum level that could be reached under positive demographic conditions.

The coordinator of this publication, INS vice president Silviu Vîrva, stated that all scenarios show a decrease in the population, but the magnitude of the decline differs significantly according to the three variants.

The constant variant shows that Romania’s population would decrease from 19.036 million (2025) to 14.367 million (2080), meaning almost a quarter of the population lost. The medium variant shows that under conditions of a slight increase in fertility and an improvement in life expectancy, the population decrease would be 3.4 million people, the equivalent of a 17.9% decline compared to 2025.

Finally, the optimistic variant envisions a favorable scenario in which the population would decrease by only 1.92 million people, or about 10.1% of the current population.

“Regardless of the scenario analyzed, Romania’s population will continue to decline until 2080, and the scale of the decline varies between one-tenth and one-quarter of the current population,” according to the INS vice president.

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