The Icelandic population could increase to 436,500 from the current 317,600 on January 1, 2060 if a population projection by Statistics Iceland, which was issued on Tuesday, comes to be.
During the protests in autumn 2008. Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.
The projection has three variants: low, medium and high. The aforementioned number is the outcome of the medium variant of the population projection. The low variant projects a population of 386,500 by 2060 and the high variant a population of 493,800.
The population will increase for most of the period, but mainly because of a high net migration. The low variant projects that the number of deaths will surpass the number of births by 2052, whereas the medium and high variants show a natural increase throughout the projection period.
The net migration is projected to be negative until 2012. This is based on modeling migration behavior and certain external variables (GDP, unemployment and number of high school graduates), explaining the migration of Icelandic and foreign citizens for the short term projection until 2015, as stated on the website of Statistics Iceland.
Last year, Iceland saw reduced population figures for the first time since the late 19th century.
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