Ireland and Cyprus are the only two EU countries set for a boom in the population between 20 and 34 years of age. The members of this group will increase exponentially in the period until 2010 according to a NCB Stockbrokers report. Generally the number of people in this age group is declining throughout Europe.
The report indicates that the EU population will remain largely unchanged until 2020. However, the 15-64 age group in Ireland will rise more dramatically than in all other EU states.
Another discovery relates to the female work force. It is expected that the percent of working women between 25 and 54 years of age will have reached 79% by 2010.
In seven of the 25 EU countries female employees are less than 76%. Therefore there exists the potential to substantiate labor force increase in Ireland.
Ireland attracts the highest percentage of immigrants from newly integrated countries, to the extent that experts have predicted it would have the biggest immigrant flow in the next several years. Countries like Portugal, Cyprus and Luxembourg also attract many immigrants. Lots of them come from Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. These countries are expected to continue seeing emigration in the years ahead.
NCB's report, based on EC and UN data, indicates that the total population of EU countries was over 450 million in 2005. Of this number the countries that joined the EU in 2004 accounted for around 70 million. The original 15 members had around 380 million people. The largest – 82.6 million – was the German population. According to the report little will change in the total EU population by 2020.
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