Luxembourg can be proud of its growing cosmopolitan character. Of the 643,941 people counted as residents in November 2021 on the occasion of the 37th population census, 304,051 people (or 47.2%) hold a nationality other than Luxembourgish.

Since 2011, the foreign population of the country has thus increased by almost 38%. This increase is due to professional immigration, according to the country’s statistics bureau Statec, which notes that the majority of foreigners living in Luxembourg are aged between 25 and 54.

A marked age gap

There is a significant difference between nationals and foreigners in terms of their average age. While the average age of the Luxembourg population is 39.7 years, it is 41.3 years for Luxembourgers, compared to 37.9 years for foreign residents.

It is especially in the 25 to 54 age groups that the foreign population is over-represented compared to the Luxembourg population. “This clearly shows that immigration to Luxembourg is mainly due to professional reasons,” says Statec.

Older people are much less represented in the foreign population, “except among a few nationalities: for example, Germans, Belgians and Italians, about 17% of whom are aged 65 and over.” The same is true for young people, with the exception of certain specific situations such as that of Syrians, 44.4% of whom are under the age of 20 in Luxembourg.

Among these foreigners living in Luxembourg, the most represented nationalities are Portuguese (14.5% of the total population), followed by French people (7.6%), Italians (3.7%), Belgians (3.1%), Germans (2.0%), Spaniards (1.3%), Romanians (1.0%) and, finally, Poles (0.8%). They are therefore mainly EU nationals, although British and Chinese people still represent 0.7% and 0.6% of the total population respectively.

More Luxembourgers thanks to acquisitions of nationality

Nationals--who represented 50.7% of the population on 8 November 2021, or 339,890 people--are also more numerous than ten years ago, but their increase of just over 16.5% since 2011, is less pronounced.

However, Statec indicates that “this increase is essentially due to the more numerous acquisitions of Luxembourg nationality following the 2008 law, which came into force on 1 January 2009, facilitating naturalisation procedures and the recovery of nationality.” It should be noted that 61,207 of these Luxembourgers have at least one other nationality.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.