Moving west

Europe is the world's oldest continent, with a median age somewhere in the mid-40s. Birth rates are also at an all-time low, and even Bulgaria, the EU country with the highest birth rate, is seeing deaths far outpace births. You might expect Southern and Eastern Europe's growing economies to be gaining people. The opposite is true. Since the late 1990s, many of these countries have seen negative population growth, while Western Europe has mostly held steady thanks to immigration. Western European countries are expected to keep outgrowing their eastern neighbours by population size.