Slovenia is ageing

Since 2017 more people have died in Slovenia every year than were born: −4,262 in 2025. Immigration covered the gap, with +8,519 more people arriving from abroad than leaving that year. That is why there are no fewer residents than ten years ago.

SURS's official projection (EUROPOP2025) has the population falling only from the 2030s, by −1.9% by 2051.

The working-age population (20–64) changes by −11.6% by 2051, while the number of people over 80 nearly doubles. Move the slider through the years and compare three assumptions about immigration: the pyramid turns top-heavy in all three; only the number of the young differs.

The municipal projection carries 2016–2026's moves forward. Ljubljana grows by +4% by 2051 and its surroundings by +8%. The ten regional centres lose −4%, municipalities near a centre −5% and remote ones −9%. 82 of 210 municipalities lose more than a tenth of their people.

Without net immigration everything shrinks, Ljubljana included (−8%).

Per 100 people of working age there will be 23.8 people over 80 in the remote municipalities instead of 10.4, and 16.5 in Ljubljana instead of 9.5. The countryside ages fastest, Ljubljana slowest.

The flight to the capital the scenario expects runs the other way in the data. Since 2016 Ljubljana has lost residents to other Slovenian municipalities (−7,747 over 2016–2025) and grown only from abroad (+21,566). Its surroundings gained +7,668 from other municipalities over the same years.

So the projection is no oracle. Launched from 2016, it misses each municipality's 2026 population by a median 3.6%, against 3.1% for simply continuing each municipality's trend. It does not beat the trend, but a trend knows nothing about age, and the model does.

2013–2025 already ran the experiment. Prices rose everywhere: by +83% in municipalities that lost more than 5% of their people, and by +112% in those that gained as much.

Each 1% of population lost meant about 1.5% less price growth than the national change (0.6 to 2.4, with distance to Ljubljana and the local wage held fixed). Gaining people added nothing measurable. A plain linear slope sees nothing (0.16), because the two sides cancel.

This is a boom phenomenon. In the falling market of 2009–2015 the slope is 0.19 (-1.08 to 1.46) and not measurable.

Carrying that relationship onto the projection is not a price forecast, but it shows the size of the gap. By 2051 the remote municipalities would lag a place that keeps its people by −15%, places near a centre by −10%, and Ljubljana not at all. With no net immigration the remote ones would lag by −26%, Maribor by −22% and Ljubljana by −12%.

Keeping today's coverage needs 34,201 care-home beds by 2051, against 20,480 today. That is about 549 new beds a year, against 178 a year added since 2016.

People over 80 per health or care worker will be higher in 12 of 13 regions than in the worst region today. Workers are thinnest in the regions around Ljubljana, not in the remote east.

Do the old move away from poor care? Not in 2016–2026. The net migration of people over 75 is unrelated to care pressure (0.08, -1.05 to 1.20, with distance to Ljubljana held fixed). For the working-age there is a link (-0.84), but it is an upper bound: places the young left are the places that aged.

If the model is made to let people flee places with poor care anyway, the scenario's sequence does appear: the regional centres first gain and then empty, while Ljubljana and Maribor grow. But Ljubljana ends 2051 larger by +12% only at a reaction 19 times the strongest one measured. At a reaction of 1, just above the measured 0.85, Ljubljana is larger by only +0.8%.

Whether Ljubljana attracts matters more than care. With 2011–2016's moves, when it still gained from other municipalities, it would be +15% larger by 2051 instead of +4%.

When a municipality becomes 1% dearer than before, relative to the country, its net migration from other municipalities falls the next year by 0.12–0.20 per 1,000 residents (measured in 98 municipalities in 2009–2025, each against itself). For Ljubljana, 10% dearer means 350–600 more people leaving a year.

The loop damps itself. If both happen, an extreme inflow from places without care and ten more years of Ljubljana prices outrunning the country, Ljubljana's prices end 2051 higher than the country's by +24% to +27% instead of +33%. In the projection for all municipalities those people land in the surroundings: they grow by +11% to +15% instead of +8%, and Ljubljana by +4% instead of +12%.

Whoever moves needs a home. If people can move only where homes are built, Ljubljana's surroundings grow by +4% instead of +13% by 2051 under the extreme push, at today's build rate. About 42,000 people find no home and stay nearer where they were: the remote municipalities lose −14% instead of −19%.

The demand that cannot move becomes price instead: the surroundings at +18% against the country instead of +17%. Doubling construction and filling a fifth of the empty dwellings restores most of the move (+11%).

The surroundings build about 632 dwellings a year; the extreme push would need 969, 1.5 times as many. The regional centres build 651 a year against a need of 51. The need is understated everywhere, because shrinking households are not counted.