The high rate of immigration in recent years is expected to continue, mainly due to the political instability in different parts of the world. The civil war in Syria is above all expected to affect migration to Sweden in the near future. There are several factors that can lead to increased as well as decreased immigration. Therefore it is difficult to predict the trends of future immigration. Among other things, uncertainties exist concerning how long the conflict in Syria will continue. Will this conflict spread within the region? How will EU immigration policy be affected? The forecast of the number of immigrants is very uncertain, both in the short run and the long run.

The number of immigrants is not only dependent on the conflict in Syria. Labour force immigration, immigration of family members to both Swedish born and foreign born persons as well as re-immigration of Swedish born persons contribute to the estimate that more than 127 000 persons will immigrate in 2014.

Sweden's population is growing

The population in Sweden is expected to increase every year during the forecast period 2014–2060. The population increase is due to the immigration surplus as well as a higher number of births than deaths each year during the forecast period. The largest increase is expected to occur for those of older ages. The number of people aged 65 and older is estimated to increase from today's roughly 1.9 million to over 3 million in 2060. During the same period, the number of persons who are of the most actively working ages of 20–64 is expected to increase from 5.6 million to slightly more than 6.1 million. The number of children and young people aged 0-19 is expected to increase from nearly 2.2 persons to slightly more than 2.6 million. In 2060 the estimated population will be almost 11.8 million.

In the long term, immigration is expected to decrease at the same time as the number of emigrants will increase, since the high immigration of recent years is not expected to continue; at the same time, a larger population creates more emigrants. During the entire forecast period it is assumed that more will emigrate than immigrate. Today roughly 1.5 million or 16 percent of the population was born abroad. In 2060 it is expected that 18 percent or roughly two million will be born outside of Sweden.

In 2013 nearly 113 600 children were born in Sweden. The number of births is expected to increase up until the beginning of the 2020s when nearly 129 000 are expected to be born. One reason is that the large number of those who were born around 1990 will be of childbearing ages.

More and more people are living longer. For those who were born in 2014, 91 percent of the women are expected to live beyond their 79th birthday and 89 percent of the men will live beyond their 78th birthday. These are the same percentages as those who survived their first year of life and were born in 1900.

The future population of Sweden 2014–2060