Economic recession affects population in the Netherlands

The population growth in the Netherlands is reported to reduce in the coming years, according to reports reaching here from Amsterdam.

Since the beginning of the economic recession, many people were expected to choose to stay without a child due to lack of job security and high costs of living, a report from Dutch Daily News said.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics the period of a rapid increasing population has come to an end. In 2009, the population was expected to grow by 86 thousand, but next year it is expected that the increase of population will be only 60 thousand. The population will decrease further in the following years.

By Wednesday, the total population in the Netherlands was 16.578 million.
The report said that the cause of the decline is the number of deaths increases due to aging in the coming years. The number of women who are fertile and around 30 years also decreases.

Meanwhile, the CBS also predicts decrease in immigration to Holland due to a decline in demand for labor and increase in emigration from Holland to other countries.

CBS also predicts that the number of births to reach 183 thousand compared with 185 thousand in 2009, the report said.

By Xuefei Chen, People's Daily Online correspondent in Stockholm, (xuefeic@yahoo.com)