In 2024, Italy and Portugal were the European countries with the largest share of elderly population, with ** percent of the total population aged 65 years and older. Bulgaria, Finland, and Greece were the countries with the next highest shares of elderly people in their population, while the European Union on average had **** percent of the population being elderly. Iceland, Ireland, and Luxembourg had around ** percent of their population being elderly, while Türkiye and Azerbaijan had around ** percent.

In 2024, the population of Europe was estimated to be approximately 6.3 million, with the most common single year of age being 37, at over 10.6 million. By contrast, there were just 176,232 people aged 100 or more in this year.

European Union - Proportion of population aged 65 and over was 21.60% in December of 2024, according to the EUROSTAT. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for European Union - Proportion of population aged 65 and over - last updated from the EUROSTAT on August of 2025. Historically, European Union - Proportion of population aged 65 and over reached a record high of 21.60% in December of 2024 and a record low of 17.60% in December of 2010.

This statistic displays the age distribution of Europe in 2020, with forecasts for 2025 and 2050. In 2020, the largest age group in Europe were those aged between 35 and 39, at roughly ** million people. By 2025 however, the largest age group is forecasted to be those aged 40-44 (**** million) and by 2050 those aged 60-64 (**** million).

Export: CSV, HTML and XLS Source: www.ecosante.fr Irdes based on Insee data

Graph and download economic data for Working Age Population: Aged 15 and Over: All Persons for the European Union (LFWATTTTEUQ647N) from Q2 2000 to Q4 2019 about 15 years +, EU, working-age, Europe, and population.

The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), is a longitudinal micro-data infrastructure created in response to a communication by the European Commission (2000) to the Council and the European Parliament, which identified population ageing and its social and economic challenges to growth and prosperity to be among the most pressing challenges of the 21st century in Europe. SHARE has also become one of the most prestigious social science infrastructures and was in 2011 the first to be appointed a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) by the European Council.The overarching objective of SHARE is to better understand the interactions between bio-medical factors, the socio-economic environment and policy interventions in the ageing European populations. SHARE aims to achieve this objective by providing a research infrastructure for fundamental science as well as a tool for policy evaluation and design. Initiated in 2002, SHARE is scheduled to launch, all in all, 10 data collection waves. At present eight waves have been fulfilled and seven waves are available to the research community.

Please also cite the following publications in addition to the SHARE acknowledgement:

Malter, F. and A. Börsch-Supan (Eds.) (2017). SHARE Wave 6: Panel innovations and collecting Dried Blood Spots. Munich: Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA). Börsch-Supan, A., Brandt, M., Hunkler, C., Kneip, T., Korbmacher, J., Malter, F., Schaan, B., Stuck, S. and Zuber, S. (2013). Data Resource Profile: The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). International Journal of Epidemiology DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyt088.

The main objectives of this data collection effort were to assemble a set of cross-nationally comparable microdata samples for Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) countries based on the 1990 national population and housing censuses in countries of Europe and North America, and to use these samples to study the social and economic conditions of older persons. The samples are designed to allow research on a wide range of issues related to aging, as well as on other social phenomena. The Estonia microdata sample contains information on persons aged 50 and over and the persons who reside with them. Variables included in this dataset cover geographic area, type of residency, type of dwelling, and household characteristics, as well as demographic information such as age, sex, marital status, number of children, education, income, and occupation.

SHARE (Survey on Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe www.share-project.org) is a pan-European longitudinal survey of the elderly (50+) population, which focuses on the study of the course of the individual aging process and the causal relationships that influence it, on the one hand, and is, on the other hand, an important source for both monitoring existing policy measures and the science-based initiation of new measures.

The panel waves of the SHARE survey have taken place since 2004 in 2-year increments. The SHARE methodology is designed to be comparable with the similar survey HRS (Heat and Retirement Survey, waves since 1992) in the USA, and in England in 2002. with the ongoing ELSA survey (English Longitudinal Survey on Aging).

Percentage of the total population who are of retirement age (60+ Females, 65+ Males), by SOA.

SHARE - Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe - is a multidisciplinary and cross-national panel database. It provides micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks of thousands individuals aged 50 or over and their (younger) partners. The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe seeks to analyse the process of population ageing in depth.

Copyright © Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) 2012

When using data from this dataset, please cite the dataset as follows: Börsch-Supan, A. (2022). Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Wave 3 – SHARELIFE. Release version: 8.0.0. SHARE-ERIC. Data set. DOI: 10.6103/SHARE.w3.800

Please also cite the following publications in addition to the SHARE acknowledgement: - Börsch-Supan, A., M. Brandt, K. Hank and M. Schröder (Eds). (2011). The individual and the welfare state. Life histories in Europe. Heidelberg: Springer. - Schröder, M. (2011). Retrospective data collection in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. SHARELIFE methodology. Mannheim: Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA). - Börsch-Supan, A., Brandt, M., Hunkler, C., Kneip, T., Korbmacher, J., Malter, F., Schaan, B., Stuck, S., Zuber, S. (2013). Data Resource Profile: The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). International Journal of Epidemiology DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyt088.

Euro Area - Proportion of population aged 50-64 years was 21.50% in December of 2024, according to the EUROSTAT. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Euro Area - Proportion of population aged 50-64 years - last updated from the EUROSTAT on July of 2025. Historically, Euro Area - Proportion of population aged 50-64 years reached a record high of 21.50% in December of 2024 and a record low of 18.90% in December of 2010.

In 2020, Germany had the highest number of over 65's at approximately 18.1 million, which was followed by Italy and France at 13.9 million and 13.7 million inhabitants respectively.

SHARE - Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe - is a multidisciplinary and cross-national panel database. It provides micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks of thousands individuals aged 50 or over and their (younger) partners. The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe seeks to analyse the process of population ageing in depth.

Copyright © Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) 2012

Cite as: Börsch-Supan, A. (2022). Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Wave 2. Release version: 8.0.0. SHARE-ERIC. Data set. DOI: 10.6103/SHARE.w2.800

Old-age-dependency ratio per 100 personsThis indicator is the ratio between the number of persons aged 65 and over (age when they are generally economically inactive) and the number of persons aged between 15 and 64. The value is expressed per 100 persons of working age (15-64).This data was downloaded on 24th July from here: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-datasets/-/tsdde510and joined to a country shapefile from NaturalEarth. Data for smaller countries e.g Monaco, Vatican City is not available.

European Union - Proportion of population aged 15-24 years was 10.70% in December of 2024, according to the EUROSTAT. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for European Union - Proportion of population aged 15-24 years - last updated from the EUROSTAT on July of 2025. Historically, European Union - Proportion of population aged 15-24 years reached a record high of 11.90% in December of 2010 and a record low of 10.50% in December of 2022.

European Union - Proportion of population aged 80 years and more was 6.10% in December of 2024, according to the EUROSTAT. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for European Union - Proportion of population aged 80 years and more - last updated from the EUROSTAT on July of 2025. Historically, European Union - Proportion of population aged 80 years and more reached a record high of 6.10% in December of 2024 and a record low of 4.70% in December of 2010.

Graph and download economic data for Working Age Population: Aged 15-24: All Persons for the Euro Area (19 Countries) (LFWA24TTEZA647N) from 2005 to 2022 about 15 to 24 years, working-age, Euro Area, Europe, and population.

In 2020, 7.4 percent of the population of Italy were over the age of 80, compared with the European Union average of 5.9 percent. By contrast, just 1.8 percent of the population of Turkey were aged over 80, the lowest share among the provided countries.

Most of the countries in Europe are experiencing a rapid aging of their populations and with this an increase in mental health challenges due to aging. Comparative research may help countries to assess the promotion of healthy aging in general, and mentally healthy aging in particular, and explore ways for adapting mental health policy measures. However, the comparative study of mental health indicators requires that the groups understand the survey questions inquiring about their mental health in the same way and display similar response patterns. Otherwise, observed differences in perceived mental health may not reflect true differences but rather cultural bias in the health measures. To date, research on cross-country equivalence of depression measures among older populations has received very limited attention. Thus, there is a growing need for the cross-country validation of existing depression measures using samples of the older population and establishing measurement equivalence of the assessment tools. Indeed, insights on mental health outcomes and how they compare across societies is paramount to inform policy makers seeking to improve mental health conditions of the populations. This study, therefore, aims to examine measurement equivalence of self-reported depressive symptoms among older populations in 17 European countries and Israel. The data for the current analysis are from the sixth wave (2015) of the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and consist of the population of respondents 50 years of age and older. The measurement of depression is based on the EURO-D scale, which was developed by a European consortium. It identifies existing depressive symptoms and consists of the 12 items: depression, pessimism, suicidality, guilt, sleep, interest, irritability, appetite, fatigue, concentration, enjoyment, and tearfulness. We examine the cross-country comparability of these data by testing for measurement equivalence using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) and alignment. Our findings reveal partial equivalence thus allowing us to draw meaningful conclusions on similarities and differences among the older population across 18 countries on the EURO-D measure of depression. Findings are discussed in light of policy implications for universal access to mental health care across countries.