December 2023 - Rural Youth Out-Migration and Population Change in Wales

People moving from rural local authority areas in Wales In the decade from 2011 to 2021 the population are more likely to move to England than to other of the nine rural counties of Wales was local authority areas in Wales: between 2010 essentially static, falling by a little under 1,000 and 2020, 209,447 people moved to England people overall. [...] These were especially located in Overall, therefore, despite substantial areas of upland areas of Mid and North Wales and the rural depopulation, net migration to and from Brecon Beacons, on the Isle of Anglesey, and rural local authorities is contributing to the along the coasts of Cardigan Bay and increase in Wales’s population, not detracting Carmarthen Bay (Figure 1). [...] Youth out-migration is central to rural depopulation Figure 1: Population change in rural wards in Wales, 2011-2019 (Source: Rural Vision Evidence Report) An online survey of 1056 young people aged between 14 and 25 living in rural Wales, As with Wales as a whole, the population of conducted in summer 2021 by the ROBUST rural Wales has been maintained only due to project, reinforced the identifica. [...] Farming continues to be of interest to around a tenth of young people, including 15% Figure 4: Preferred career working environment for of young men – higher than the current young people (aged 14-25) living in rural Wales, proportion of the workforce in rural Wales 2021 (n=1056) (Source: Survey of Young People in employed in agriculture. [...] Rural Wales) In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, there were predictions that the normalisation of remote working could help to stem rural What can be done – learning from depopulation – both through remote workers what works in Wales and beyond moving into rural communities for lifestyle Wales is not the only nation with youth out- benefits, and by enabling rural young people to migration and de.