“Immigration remains an essential lever for mitigating the effects of ageing, but it alone will not be able to offset the structural transformations underway,” analyses Statec’s 2025 “Work and Social Cohesion” report, published on Wednesday 12 November. Its thematic section is dedicated to the ageing of the population, and the impact of migration is explored in particular.
“Migration affects the age composition of the population, as well as demographic growth. In Luxembourg, it is also a factor in rejuvenation. The majority of people arriving in or leaving Luxembourg are of working age (20–64). In 2024, 77.7% of immigrants and 79.9% of emigrants will be of working age. By comparison, immigrants aged over 64 arriving in Luxembourg represent only 2.3% of all immigrants. The share of those leaving the country amounts to 6.0% of emigration,” explains the report.
Little change in the over-65s
The authors took the experiment a step further, by simulating population trends from a reference date with zero net migration. The results obtained make it possible to quantify the importance of migration as a brake on demographic ageing. By studying population trends since 1981 in the absence of migration, this simulation gives the following results: the population would have grown less rapidly.
Instead of standing at 681,973 inhabitants on 1st January 2025, it would only be 429,997 inhabitants, a decrease of 36.9%. The population of working age (20–64) would have been lower. “Instead of 435,469, it would have been 210,459, a reduction of 51.7%. The population aged 65 and over, however, would have changed little. Instead of reaching 103,889, it would have risen to 99,448, a decrease of only 4.3%,” notes Statec.
Nothing surprising when you consider that 80% of Luxembourg’s population growth is due to immigration and that the proportion of foreigners living in Luxembourg stood at 47% on 1st January 2025. In 1961, the proportion of foreigners was just 13.2%. In its 2025 edition of “La Démographie luxembourgeoise en chiffres”, the statistics institute also pointed out that “foreign residents are significantly younger than Luxembourgers. The average age for Luxembourg women is 42.2, compared with 38.9 for foreign women. For Luxembourg men, the average age is 40, compared with 38.6 for foreigners. By superimposing the age pyramid of foreigners and nationals, we can see that the proportion of foreigners decreases between the ages of 0 and 19 (45.5% of foreigners in the 0–4 age group, 35.8% in the 15–19 age group) before increasing thereafter.”
The foreign population is also ageing
From the age of 26, and up to the age of 55, the foreign population is over-represented (for example, 59.3% of 40-44-year-olds are foreign). “From the age of 55 onwards, the share of the Luxembourg population once again takes the upper hand. The foreign population decreases and becomes very small at very old ages (31.4% of people of foreign nationality from the age of 65 and only 20.5% from the age of 90).”
In its zero migration simulation, Statec analyses that in terms of the dependency ratio, “there would have been more people aged 65 or over for every 100 people of working age. At 1st January 2025, the old-age dependency ratio would have reached 42% in the absence of migratory flows, instead of the 22% observed. In other words, ageing would have been much greater in the absence of migration.”
Migration slows the process of population ageing somewhat, without stopping it. “However, the foreign population that has settled in Luxembourg is also getting older. This, in the long term, is likely to exacerbate the ageing phenomenon. On 1st January 2025, the number of elderly foreigners (aged 65 and over) was 32,657 (31.4% of those aged 65 and over) and 71,232 for the population of Luxembourg nationality, an increase of 730.7% and 56.2% respectively compared with 1981. In 1981, only 7.9% of those aged 65 and over were of foreign nationality,” the report goes on to explain.
