How Belgium changed face in ten years

More and more Belgians are highly educated

The number of Belgians who have completed higher education has increased significantly over the past ten years. In 2011, this concerned 27.8 percent of the population over 20 years of age, in 2021 that share has increased to 31.8 percent. It fluctuates from 29 percent in Wallonia and 32 percent in Flanders to 38 percent in the Brussels-Capital Region.

Of the five most highly educated municipalities, five are located in or close to the Brussels Region: Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, Kraainem, Wezenbeek-Oppem and Lasne. These are all prosperous municipalities, popular with expats and European civil servants. The university city of Leuven also scores very high: more than half of the population is highly educated. In the Brussels Region and in Flemish and Walloon Brabant, the average education level is clearly higher than in the rest of the country. The level of education is also relatively high around Ghent and Arlon. The Flemish municipalities with the lowest share of highly educated people are Mesen and Zelzate.

More elderly people, especially on the coast

The aging population has slightly increased the average age of the population over the past ten years. In ten years it went from 40.9 to 42.0 years. The province of West Flanders is the oldest, the Brussels Region the youngest. The difference between the two is more than 7 years.

The municipalities with the oldest populations are all on the coast. Koksijde takes the cake with 55.1 years. The high average age of the coastal municipalities has to do with the popularity of these places to live among retirees. Many Belgians go to live close to the sea after retirement. In Brussels, the strong influx of immigrants means that the birth rate is high and the average age is low. For the same reason, Ghent and Antwerp also have a young population.

Of the five municipalities with the youngest populations, four are in the Capital Region. The residents of Molenbeek are on average 35.2 years old, those of Sint-Joost one month older. The Ardennes municipality of Léglise, near Neufchateau, also has a very young population.

Belgium has become more diverse

An increasing share of the Belgian population was born abroad and emigrated to Belgium. In 2011 this was 14.4 percent of the population, ten years later it was 17.7 percent. Immigrants are unevenly distributed across the Regions: in Flanders the share is 14 percent, in Wallonia 15 percent and in the Brussels Region 46 percent. Yet the municipality with the highest percentage of immigrants is not there, but in the East Cantons. In Raeren, more than 61 percent of the population was born abroad. It’s mainly about Germans. The lowest percentages are found in West Flanders. Of the residents of Horebeke in East Flanders, 2.1 percent were born outside Belgium.

Ten years ago, the large cities and border municipalities in particular could count many immigrants among their residents, but this now also applies to municipalities in the rest of the country. In provincial cities such as Roeselare, Oudenaarde or Sint-Truiden, roughly one in ten residents was born outside Belgium. In Ghent this is one in five, in Antwerp one in three. Immigrants from within the EU mainly settle in Brussels and in the border municipalities, while those from outside the EU also live in other regions.

Marriage is less popular, especially in Wallonia

A striking trend is that the share of married Belgians has fallen sharply in ten years. The figure fell from 51.0 percent to 44.5 percent. At the same time, the number of legally cohabiting people has increased from 3 percent to 7 percent. The difference between the two language communities is remarkable. Marriage is more popular in Flanders than in Wallonia, the opposite applies to legal cohabitation.

The difference between city and countryside is also striking. The three municipalities with the highest percentage of married people are Herstappe, Heusden-Zolder and Kinrooi, those with the lowest percentage are the Brussels municipalities of Ixelles and Sint-Gillis, followed by Liège. In Limburg, 52 percent are married, in the Brussels Region 38 percent. There are noticeably more married people living in the East Cantons than in the rest of Wallonia. Cohabitation is especially popular in Wallonia. Of the Walloons, 7.5 percent have chosen this form, in Flanders 6.6 percent and in Brussels 3.9 percent.

Fewer self-contained houses, more apartments

The figures on residential accommodation show that an increasing share of Belgians live in an apartment, and an increasingly smaller share in a self-contained house. The share of “conventional homes in a building with only one home” has fallen from 70 percent to 66 percent in ten years.

The decline occurs in the three regions, but in the Brussels Region the number of self-contained houses is obviously much lower than in Flanders and Wallonia. The coastal municipalities also have many apartment residents. Horebeke in East Flanders tops the rankings with the lowest number of apartment residents: 97 percent of residents live in a house. In Brussels Sint-Gillis this applies to only 3.5 percent of the population.

While in 2011 a large part of rural municipalities had less than 10 percent apartment residents, a municipality with very few apartments has become a rarity ten years later.Municipalities where there are hardly any apartments are mainly concentrated in East and West Flanders and in the Hageland.