Diminishing future need for schools is overstated

Diminishing future need for schools is overstated 

A common misunderstanding in the media is that SCB (Statistics Sweden) makes population forecasts – when in reality, these are just extrapolations based on current trends. To address this, Newsec has created a model to better forecast population and birth trends going forward. While birth rates are still expected to go down, the population decline is not expected to be as severe.  

Newsec conducted a study to predict the number of children to be born until 2070, both across the entire country and for individual municipalities. To do this, initially ten factors that could influence birth rates were analyzed. After testing the variables statistically, it was determined that three factors had the most significant impact: 

Unemployment levels
Birth rates, for women born in Sweden
Immigration of women 

This, coupled with Newsec’s analysis of the maintenance backlog which many schools face today (with two thirds of the stock assessed to be over 40 years old), leads Newsec to conclude that much of the current discourse surrounding the diminishing need for schools in the future has been overstated. “We find particularly striking results on the municipality level, where our forecast often varies substantially from the SCB figures,” says Adam Tyrcha, PhD, Head of Research at Newsec. 

Do you want to the forecast for your municipality?
Please contact Malin Heim Dymling or Mathias Chronqvist