Befolkningsutvecklingen i Tornedalskommunerna under åren 2010 och 2019

Sweden’s population is growing and has been growing a lot since the year 2000. This growth is expected to continue. Although Sweden´s population is increasing, this is not the case for all municipalities. Some rural municipalities are decreasing in population, like the four Torne valley municipalities. These four municipalities are Kiruna, Haparanda, Pajala and Övertorneå. This study is quantitative and is based on population statistics from the database SCB. The aim of this study is to examine how the population has changed in volume and composition during the years 2010 to 2019 in the four Torne valley municipalities in Sweden. This study is also going to discuss the possible reasons behind the population change and relate it to theories and other studies. The results show that all the Torne valley municipalities had a negative population growth in the last ten years. The age and gender share has also changed. The results also show that the gender balance in the different age groups are unbalanced, for example there are more women than men aged 75 years or older. Over the past ten years the amount of people aged 65 or above has increased, meanwhile the amount of working-age people has decreased. This has led to a higher dependency ratio for all municipalities. Furthermore, the results show that the international migration has been important for all municipalities, without the international migrants all municipalities would have a larger decrease of population