Romania’s population could shrink by almost a quarter by 2080

Romania is facing a sharp demographic decline, confirmed by the latest analyses published by the National Statistics Institute (INS). Projections show that by the year 2080, the country’s population could decrease by up to a quarter compared to current levels. At the same time, INS warns about the advanced process of demographic aging: the number of people over 65 now significantly exceeds the number of children, a trend that is already reshaping the country’s social and economic structure. INS spokesperson, Vladimir Alexandrescu, made the following statement about the institute’s recently published study:

Ion Puican, 17.12.2025, 14:00

Romania is facing a sharp demographic decline, confirmed by the latest analyses published by the National Statistics Institute (INS). Projections show that by the year 2080, the country’s population could decrease by up to a quarter compared to current levels. At the same time, INS warns about the advanced process of demographic aging: the number of people over 65 now significantly exceeds the number of children, a trend that is already reshaping the country’s social and economic structure. INS spokesperson, Vladimir Alexandrescu, made the following statement about the institute’s recently published study:

“The study addresses an issue that is essential for any country and, of course, for Romania as well: the issue of its population and the demographic future of the nation. This is not the first attempt to highlight, within the Romanian public sphere (political, social, and among ordinary people) the risk that Romania is currently facing and which is not sufficiently understood by those who should be aware of what’s happening: the risk of depopulation, overlapping with a rampant, chronic aging process that has now, I must stress, become rampant. Romania’s population is rapidly aging, against the backdrop of the general aging of Europe’s population. We rank last in Europe in this regard, but that shouldn’t make us feel any better, just because we’re doing slightly better than others who are doing very poorly. This is a turning point, one that reinforces the alarm signals that Romanian statistics and demography have been issuing. Right now, we’ve reached a situation that may seem strange to many, but it must be noted: in recent years, fewer children have been born in all of Romania than were born in the United Principalities back in 1870–1880. Clearly, measures must be considered to address this increasingly pressing risk. I don’t want to use an excessively dramatic tone, but it truly is a borderline situation, and these are the last historical moments when measures could still be taken that might produce results”.

In 2025, the number of people over the age of 65 is already more than 35% higher than the number of children under 14. The aging index rose in a single year from 126 to 132 elderly people per 100 young people. And recent studies show that the population aged over 55 will continue to grow, increasing pressure on the medical and social systems.

The INS analysis includes three distinct scenarios for the evolution of Romania’s population through 2080. Even in the optimistic scenario, the population continues to decline, just at a slower pace. In the scenario considered the most likely, the medium variant, the country could lose nearly 3.5 million residents in the coming decades. Cristian Șelaru from the INS communication department spoke to us about these demographic forecasts:

“It’s more than a warning signal. Romania is currently going through, as you well know, some rather tragic times, because fewer and fewer children are being born, and that doesn’t suggest a very good future. Of course, our study starts from Romania’s resident population as of January 1, 2025. At that point, according to our data, we were at around 19,036,000 residents. Based on that resident population, factoring in, of course, fertility rates and the structure of live births by mothers’ ages in the previous year, 2024, as well as life expectancy at birth in 2024 by sex and by county, plus the internal migration balance in 2024 and the international migration balance, we were able to produce these forecasts, so to speak. But they do not look good in any way. And we classified them into three categories. The constant variant: Romania’s population would fall by 2080 to 14,367,000 residents, that is, a reduction of 4,669,000 residents. Then we have the optimistic variant: a slightly more favorable scenario, let’s say, where the population would decrease by 1.9 million people—about 10% of the resident population on January 1, 2025. And then we have the medium scenario, which we can perhaps consider the most plausible: the reduction would be 3.4 million people, around 18% less than we were on January 1, 2025. These are the figures, but they will have a very large impact, not only on the labor market, not only on the school population, whether we’re talking about primary, middle school, or high school, but also on what will happen in universities”.

Cristian Șelaru also spoke about possible solutions for the future:

“We need higher birth rates. This cannot change tomorrow or the day after. We need public policies that stretch over decades. If we want to change something by 2080, in other words, to reduce that forecast loss of almost five million people, we could do it, but only over decades, not with quick fixes from one day to the next, not by cutting, but by investing. And not speaking only from a place of pessimism, but always with optimism about the future. Because when a young person only sees what is offered to them in shades of black, they will always choose at least the shade of gray that they see elsewhere, in other countries”.

The data brings to the forefront a reality with major implications for Romania’s future. The shrinking population, coupled with accelerated aging, will affect the labor market, pension systems, social welfare, and the way communities adapt to new demographic structures. The INS projections provide an essential tool for building public policies capable of responding to the challenges of the coming decades. (VP)