Households forecasts

Single-person households

Differentiating between single- or multi-person households, the number of singles will con-tinue to increase above average. Austria-wide, the number of single-person households will exceed the 2009 figure of 1.29 million by more than one fifth (+21.3%), reaching 1.56 million in 2030.

In Vorarlberg, the number of single-person households will rise by nearly a third by 2030. By that year, single figures will also increase far above the Austrian average in Burgenland, Upper Austria, Carinthia, Tyrol, Lower Austria and Salzburg. Styria (+19%) and the capital city of Vienna (+16%) will be the only states to fall below the average Austrian rate of increase, posting the lowest rises in single-person households among all assumptions for states.

Multi-person households

The number of multi-person households will increase Austria-wide across the entire projected period to 2050, but not in all federal states. In Carinthia this number is already showing a slight downward trend. While in 2009, Austria boasted 2.31 million multi-person households, this figure will go up to 2.49 million units (+7.7%) in 2030 under the trend variant of the cur-rent model, and finally to 2.58 million (+11.8%) in 2050.

The three eastern states with the highest future population growth, as well as Vorarlberg in the west, will record the strongest growth in multi-person households by 2030, scoring growth rates above the Austrian average.  The ranking is led by Lower Austria, followed by the Austrian capital city of Vienna, Vorarlberg and Burgenland.

In Carinthia, the number of multi-person households is stagnant and should be slightly below the 2009 figure in 2030. On the other hand, four states post growth rates, to 2030, below the average for multi-person households, namely Tyrol, Upper Austria, Salzburg and Styria.

By size of multi-person household, continued strong growth Austria-wide in the future will mainly occur among two-person households: 13 % on average. The number of three-person households will increase less strongly, while that of four-person households is stagnant. On the other hand, the large household-sharing communities consisting of five or more members will diminish.

Small-scale household trends

It is evident that in the next few decades, the number of private households will increase nearly everywhere in Austria on the small-scale regional level as well. The few projected regions with dropping household figures correspond to some peripheral regions with high emigration rates, which lead to strong additional demographic ageing as a result. According to the current projection for 2030, a total of eight of these regions will feature fewer private house-holds than in 2009. In the future, these regions will see shrinking or stagnant populations. This is reflected in household numbers as well.

On the other hand, the number of households will continue to increase strongly in the regions marked by continued, strong demographic growth. Most increases are almost exclusively expected in the vicinity of, and in slightly more distant areas surrounding, the big cities (Vienna, Graz, Linz), but also in some regions of the states of Vorarlberg and Tyrol.

Fewer families with children in future

The number of families (married or cohabiting couples with or without children and single mothers and fathers with their children) was 2.21 million in 2001 and will rise to 2.39 million (+8.5%) by 2030 and to 2.46 million (+11.6%) by 2050. While the number of (married) couples without children is set to rise by 46% from 0.77 million (2001) to 1.13 million by 2047, the number of families with children and, in parallel, the number of children in families is already decreasing. In 2030 there will be 1.31 million families with children, 9% fewer than in the Population Census year 2001, when there were 1.43 million.

Please consult our German website for tables and charts containing further information.