The purpose of this report is to deliver a set of data that shows the most important development trends in Danish rural districts. The report has two main questions: 1) Is the population and employment decline in rural districts a recent phenomenon?, and 2) In which time periods have rural districts experienced the most severe declines in terms of population and employment numbers? The report shows that population numbers in rural districts and on small Danish islands have declined ever since 1940. The strongest declines happened during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. From 1981-2013, population numbers have fallen more moderately compared to the previous 30-year period. The heated debate in recent years in Denmark about the plight of rural areas is thus not happening at a time of extraordinary population decline seen in a historical perspective. The employment development is investigated by looking at the regional development since the mid- and end-1990s, as shown by using a rural district classification dividing the country into 4 municipality groups: Peripheral, rural, intermediate, and city municipalities. Since the end-1990s, employment numbers have declined in peripheral municipalities, especially after the 2008 financial crisis. Rural municipalities have followed the same development trend, although to a less strong degree, whereas intermediate and city municipalities have experienced an overall increase in employment since the end-1990s. The employment decline in peripheral municipalities has taken place in the primary sector and in the production trades and the lost jobs have not been replaced by new jobs in the service sector. The service sector, on the other hand, has been the motor behind the employment increase in city municipalities. Jobs in the service sector often hold a certain amount of knowledge content, and given that the well-educated workforce primarily is located in the larger urban areas, it is a special challenge for municipalities in the more peripheral areas of Denmark to create such jobs.
The development in population numbers is the best joint indicator for the development of areas and regions. The population development gives an indication of the popularity of a given area as a place for settlement and at the same time it gives an indication of the employment development of the area. Therefore, having data from as far back as 1940, the population data gives the best overview of the historical development in rural areas. Thus, in the broad perspective, the ever negative development in rural district since the 1950s was most pronounced during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, arguably due to continuous efficiency improvements and mechanization within agriculture, whereas the last 30 years are characterized by more moderate declines that have been relatively evenly distributed throughout the period. Overall, since the 1950s, Denmark has followed the same trend towards urbanisation that has happened in most other developed countries in the world.