The phenomenon of demographic ageing has increased last year, as the elderly population aged 65 and over exceeded by more than 27.5% the young population aged 0-14 years, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INS), published Friday.

The demographic ageing index increased from 122 on 1 January 2023 to 127.5 elderly people per 100 young people on 1 January 2024.

The number of people in the 65 and over age category was around 3.97 million while the young population, in the 0-14 age category, totalled 3.11 million.

„The process of demographic ageing continued in 2023, with a slight decrease (by 0.3 percentage points) in the share of young people (0-14 years) and at the same time an increase (by 0.4 percentage points) in the share of the elderly population (65 years and over) in the total population,” the INS release said.

On 1 January 2024, the largest share in the total population was held by the 45-49 age group (8.6%). The same age group had the largest share among both women (8.3%) and men (9%).

The share of the 0-4 age group was 4.4%, lower than that of the 5-9 (4.9%), 10-14 (5%) and 15-19 (5.2%) age groups.

By residence, population in urban areas stood at almost 12.19 million people, down 1% from 1 January 2023, and in rural areas it was about 9.65 million people, slightly up 0.2% from 1 January 2023.

The female population on 1 January 2024 was 11.18 million, down 0.4% from the same date the previous year. The same trend is recorded for the male population, which was 10.65 million people, down 0.5% from the same date of the previous year.

The average age of the population was 42.5 years, 0.3 years older than on 1 January 2023. The median age was 43.2 years, up 0.4 years from 1 January 2023.

AGERPRES