Coronavirus pandemic slowed Dutch population growth

The coronavirus pandemic slowed down the growth of the Dutch population. At one point, growth was halved because more people died than were born and because fewer people could move to the Netherlands, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported.

Three years ago on Monday, the first coronavirus patient was diagnosed in the Netherlands. On 27 February 2020, a man from Loon op Zand in Noord-Brabant became the first confirmed case. The then Health Minister Bruno Bruins announced the first confirmed infection in a direct TV broadcast. There have now been 8.6 million positive Covid-19 tests in the Netherlands. The actual number of infections is even higher.

In 2020, the year of the outbreak, the rate at which the population grew was half that of 2019. The whole world was in lockdown, and migration - the Netherlands’ primary source of population growth - came to a standstill. There was a baby boom in 2021, but fewer babies were born in 2022.

In a review of the three years since the coronavirus hit the Netherlands, CBS also found that the pandemic led to more mental health problems. About one in five young people have mental health complaints, significantly more than before the pandemic. And almost half think that the coronavirus crisis negatively impacted their lives.