According to this article from the BBC…
“Northern Ireland’s population is projected to peak at 1.95m in 2033 before starting to decline, a report by the official statistics agency suggests.
The projection from the NI Statistics and Research Agency says the population will start falling due to a low birth rate.
It suggests that by 2031 there will be more annual deaths than births and that trend will then continue.
Any population increase after 2031 would solely be due to migration.
The projection is based on current assumptions about birth and death rates and migration.
Overall it projects the NI population to increase by just 1.1% between 2022 and 2047.
That is much lower than the other parts of the UK, mainly based on the assumption that migration to NI will continue at the current relatively low rate.
The projections also point to a rapidly aging society with the number of pensioners expected to outnumber children by the middle of 2027.
The ‘working age’ population, meaning people aged 16 – 64, is projected to start falling by the middle of 2028.
The projection suggests the over 65s will be more than one in four of the population by 2047 compared to about one in six today.
Children, defined as people under 15, are projected to fall from, just over one in five of the population in 2022 to less than one in six by 2047.
Among the constituent parts of the UK Northern Ireland is projected to have the largest decrease in the population of children and largest increase in the pension age population.
The projections are not intended to act as a forecast and the underpinning assumptions can change, for example if the government was to change its migration policy.”
Population decline is not unique to Northern Ireland, with many countries grappling with looming demographic crises and the consequences of a smaller working age population needing to support a larger cohort of elderly. We here in Northern Ireland will have to figure out our own solutions in the coming decades. Immigration is one possible solution, though many here did their best to make their feelings clear regarding immigration last summer and the figures make clear that inward migration to Northern Ireland is going to be very low.
And Northern Ireland being Northern Ireland, the coming population peak will inevitably led to questions about what it means for a United Ireland. Demographics may not be destiny but it certainly informs a lot of the conversations regarding the outcome of a hypothetical border poll.
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