Prospective Population Aging in Sweden: Economic Consequences and the Impact of Migration

Felix Roessger, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

In this article the economic consequences that are accompanied by the prospective demographic development in Sweden are explored. For this purpose data for age-specific consumption and labor earnings are incorporated. Thus, it is possible to estimate how much excess consumption on an aggregated level needs to be financed in different demographic scenarios during a time span until 2050. Currently, no combination of assumptions with regard to fertility, mortality and migration made by Statistics Sweden can detain excess consumption from increasing. Low migration, high fertility and low mortality alternatives reinforce this development, whereas the contrary alternatives would have a mitigating effect in contrast to a medium scenario. An in-depth investigation of the migration effect shows that a potential “migration gain” is estimated with excess consumption being eight percentage points lower in 2050 than without any migration, if recent levels of immigration remain constant.