Sweden

Population Statistics Population – 9,555,000 Birth rate – 11.9 Death rate – 9.6 Fertility rate – 1.92 Live births – 113,177 Deaths – 91,938 Life expectancy (males) – 80 Life expectancy (females) – 84

Large outbreak in disease Moving into stage 5: declining population Medical breakthroughs Higher literacy rates and education

As can be seen on the map the majority of immigrants in Sweden are coming from Iran, Iraq, Finland, and Serbia. Many of the immigrants arriving from Iran and Iraq would be refugees trying to escape the dangers of living in their country currently. There is a moderate number of immigrants born in other European countries as well as the USA and southern Asia. Immigration

Population Challenges The Largest demographic issue facing Sweden right now is a low birth rate. Sweden also has a very high life expectancy. These two factors combined mean that Sweden has very many old people and too few children. The low fertility rate in Sweden is because women work in professions, and this means that they usually spend their potential childbearing years getting an education and starting their career. This means that by the time they get around to having children, they have less time to do it. Women in professions also affects the fertility rate because having children will affect your lifestyle, and so many choose to have small families. A result of this is that there is not much of a young dependency load. Despite that, there is a high dependency load because there is a low death rate, and a high life expectancy. Many of Sweden’s elderly people rely on government pensions as their source of income after retirement. Because there are so few children, there will be a smaller workforce and tax base in a few years, and taxes will increase dramatically so that the enormous dependency load can be supported by the small working age community. In Sweden, in about 20 or 30 years there will be a lack of working age people. Essentially, the largest demographic problem in Sweden is the combination of a low birth rate and low death rate. This creates a massive aged population.

Because Sweden has too few children, and too many old people, it has what could be called an aging population crisis. There are potential solutions for the future and those are; to encourage immigration of working age people, encourage larger families and raise the retirement age. A few ways to encourage larger families is to offer a cash bonus to the families with 2, 3 or 4 kids. There could also program for aspiring parents to adopt young orphans from Africa or children without parents in developing countries. These two tactics could increase the number of children, and so there would soon be more working age people. This would help reduce the aged dependency load. Another potential solution is an open doors immigration policy. There are many people in the world who are working age but unemployed. If they were encouraged to come to Sweden, there would be more people of working age in Sweden, making a larger tax base. This would mean that there will be more money to fund healthcare and old age pensions. This could help deal with an imminent funding crisis for services for old people, and boost the economy.