Population Outlook 2050: more residents born outside the Netherlands
The previously published CBS Population Forecast 2023-2070 describes the most likely future population trends, but it also contains uncertainties. For this study, seven future scenarios were created to forecast the population in 2050 if the number of children, life expectancy and migration evolve differently than projected in the Population Forecast.
More residents born outside the Netherlands: up from 3.4 million to 5.5 million
At the start of 2023, the Netherlands had 17.8 million residents, of whom 2.8 million (16 percent) were born elsewhere. If average net migration (immigration minus emigration) is relatively low, this group could grow to 3.4 million people by 2050 (Low Migration scenario). Under conditions of relatively high net migration, the number could be as high as 5.5 million people (Labour and Growth scenarios). The percentage of people born outside the Netherlands would also increase, to 19 percent of the population in 2050 in the Low Migration scenario and 26 percent in the Labour scenario.
In 2023, among all those living in the Netherlands, 15.0 million were also born here. That could fall to 13.9 million (Contraction scenario) or increase to 16.4 million (Growth scenario). Under all scenarios, however, the number of people born in the Netherlands with origins outside the Netherlands will increase and the number of people with Dutch origins will decline. In 2023, 73 percent of the population as a whole were of Dutch origin. By 2050, 66 percent of people will still be of Dutch origin if migration is low (Low Migration scenario). With high net migration (Labour and Growth scenarios), the share of people with Dutch origins could fall to 58 percent.
| Jaar/Variant | Born in the Netherlands, Dutch origin (in millions) | Born in the Netherlands, non-Dutch origin (in millions) | Born outside the Netherlands (in millions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 12.978 | 2.056 | 2.777 |
| 2050 | |||
| Growth | 12.744 | 3.614 | 5.452 |
| Green | 11.985 | 3.344 | 4.475 |
| Labour | 11.973 | 3.329 | 5.455 |
| Forecast* | 11.972 | 3.137 | 4.574 |
| Asylum | 11.969 | 3.241 | 4.952 |
| Low Migration | 11.966 | 2.876 | 3.405 |
| Grey | 11.945 | 2.931 | 4.665 |
| Contraction | 11.181 | 2.723 | 3.87 |
| * Population Forecast 2023-2070 | |||
Changing composition of residents born outside the Netherlands
In the past, many people came to the Netherlands from Turkey, Morocco, Suriname, Indonesia and the Caribbean Netherlands (these countries are known as the traditional countries of origin). The expansion of the European Union (EU), a more internationalised labour market and a rise in asylum migration have led to an increase in the number of countries that migrants originate from. In the future, people born in a wider range of countries will live in the Netherlands. In 2023, 28 percent of migrants were from the traditional countries of origin. That share may fall to 14 percent (in the Labour scenario) or 19 percent (in the Low Migration scenario) by 2050. There will be a relative increase in the numbers of migrants with origins in asylum migration countries and labour and study migration countries outside the EU.
| Jaartal/Variant | EU countries, Western Europe (percent) | EU countries, Central and Eastern Europe (percent) | Labour and study migration countries (percent) | Africa (excl. Morocco) and Middle East (percent) | Turkey and Morocco (percent) | Suriname, Indonesia and Caribbean Netherlands (percent) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 14.3 | 12.5 | 25.6 | 19.5 | 14 | 14 |
| 2050 | ||||||
| Labour | 15.8 | 16.7 | 31.1 | 22.2 | 8.3 | 5.9 |
| Asylum | 12.5 | 13.6 | 26.2 | 32 | 9.2 | 6.4 |
| Forecast* | 13.6 | 14.7 | 28.3 | 26.4 | 9.9 | 7 |
| Low Migration | 15.2 | 16.7 | 26.3 | 22.4 | 11.3 | 8.1 |
| * Population Forecast 2023-2070 | ||||||
Increasing share of people aged between 20 and state pension age born outside the Netherlands in 2050
In 2023, there were 10.1 million people aged between 20 years old and the state pension age. In the Contraction and Low Migration scenarios, that number remains around the same; in the other scenarios, it would increase slightly, to 10.3 million in the Growth scenario.
There will be more people born in a country outside the Netherlands in this age group by 2050. This group will increase by somewhere between 0.3 million (Low Migration scenario) and 2.1 million (Labour and Growth scenarios). In all scenarios, migrants from labour and study migration countries outside the EU will make up the largest proportion of migrants. The number of those of non-Dutch origin born in the Netherlands would also increase in this age group, by somewhere between 0.5 million (Contraction scenario) and 0.7 million (Growth scenario). The number of those born in the Netherlands and with Dutch origins in this age group declines under all scenarios.
| Born in the Netherlands, Dutch origin (in millions) | Born in the Netherlands, non-Dutch origin (in millions) | Born outside the Netherlands (in millions) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low migration | -1.180 | 0.606 | 0.347 |
| Contraction | -1.477 | 0.502 | 0.727 |
| Green | -1.359 | 0.604 | 1.238 |
| Forecast* | -1.177 | 0.615 | 1.342 |
| Grey | -0.968 | 0.630 | 1.450 |
| Asylum | -1.179 | 0.622 | 1.653 |
| Labour | -1.178 | 0.626 | 2.119 |
| Growth | -0.885 | 0.717 | 2.118 |
| * Population Forecast 2023-2070 | |||
During parliamentary discussions with the Cabinet in 2018, the House of Representatives asked the Cabinet to evaluate the consequences of changes in the size and composition of the population in the year 2050. The Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) therefore designed seven future population scenarios at the request of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. These show what could happen if the birth rate, life expectancy and migration evolve differently to the assumptions made in CBS’s Population Forecast. In 2024, CBS updated the seven future population scenarios in the Population Outlook 2050 on behalf of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. These projections are supplementary to the existing population forecasts published by CBS.
This edition of the population scenarios is part of a larger project that also includes in-depth studies of the backgrounds to demographic trends, and the possible consequences of demographic trends for policy and society. That part of the project is being carried out by NIDI in partnership with CBS. There will be separate publications on this subject, available on the NIDI website and CBS’s Population Forecast Dashboard.