Ukraine's population could drop to 15.3 million by end of century, UN says

Ukraine's population may decrease to 15.3 million people by 2100, according to the United Nations Secretariat's revision of world population projections for 2024.

The population of Ukraine amounted to 37.441 million people by Jan. 1, 2024, while in 2026, it will rise to 39.7 million and then will begin to decline every year, according to the UN.

Oleksandr Hladun, deputy director of Ukraine's Demography Institute, called the UN's forecast "pessimistic."

"It was probably developed with the war in mind and the absence of any demographic policy measures," Hladun told Ukrainska Pravda in an interview published on July 15.

"I would not advise taking the UN's demographic forecast as a real verdict on Ukraine," he added.

Hladun said that there are several categories of demographic forecasts: optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic. Each has its own parameters regarding births, deaths, and migration.

The expert also mentioned that forecasts are divided by duration: short-term (2-5 years, the most accurate), medium-term (10-15 years), and long-term (over 50 years). The accuracy decreases with the increase in time.

"Long-term forecasts should be viewed as a warning of what developments may lead to with certain parameters of births, deaths, and migration," he said.

Ukraine's population could decline to about 30 million by 2037, according to a mid-2023 forecast by the Demography Institute.

"In my opinion, the most pessimistic forecast for Ukraine in the long term is a reduction to 25 million citizens. But even if the population starts to decline rapidly, it will be replaced by people who will migrate from other countries," Hladun said.

Over 14 million people, nearly a third of Ukraine's population, have been forced to flee their homes in the two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Feb. 22.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, 4.5 million people have returned to Ukraine, the IOM said.

Another 3.7 million people are internally displaced within Ukraine, while nearly 6.5 million are refugees abroad, according to IOM data.

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The Kyiv IndependentKateryna Hodunova