Bulgaria is among the countries with the oldest population in the European Union in 2019, according to data from the European statistical office Eurostat.
21.3% of Bulgarians last year were aged 65 and over. Among the elderly in our country, the largest is the share of those aged 75 and over – 618,008 people, according to Eurostat.
Next is the age group between 65 and 69 years – 473 587, and people aged between 70 and 74 years are 401 524. As of last year, the population of Bulgaria was just over 7 million people (7,000,039 people), according to Eurostat.
The oldest population in our country is the population of Northern and Southeastern Bulgaria, followed by Southwestern and Southern Bulgaria.
In 2019, 30.3% of the population of EU member states was aged 65 and over. This is 0.3% more than a year earlier and 2.9% above the level ten years ago. Eurostat has produced statistics on the elderly population in the EU, as it is believed that they are more at risk of coronavirus.
The share of older people in the total population of the countries is highest in Italy (22.8%), followed by Greece (22%), Portugal and Finland (21.8% each) and Germany (21.5%). The lowest share is in the population of Ireland (14.1%) and Luxembourg (14.4%). At the regional level, the oldest population is Chemnitz in Germany (28.9%), followed by the Italian region of Liguria (28.5%), Ipeiros in Greece (27%), Limousin in France (26.7%) and the German Saxony-Anhalt (26.5%).
The share of older people is lowest in the French overseas territories of Mayotte (2.7%) and French Guiana (5.8%) and in the Spanish autonomous city of North Africa, Melilla (10.7%).