Young people live in cities, children in rural areas

The youngest part of the Dutch population is divided unequally across the neighbourhoods in the Netherlands. Many teenagers and young adults live in urban neighbourhoods, while families with young children live mainly outside the cities.

Young people in student neighbourhoods

Neighbourhoods with relatively many people aged between 15 and 25 years can be found in extremely urbanised areas. A relatively high percentage of students live in these areas - such as the Uithof on the university grounds in Utrecht and the student flats in Diemen near Amsterdam Science park. In these neighbourhoods students in higher education account for around 60 percent of the population.

Children in rural areas

Children under 15 years live mainly in rural areas. On average, children account for 20 percent of the population in non-urban neighbourhoods. In neighbourhoods such as Urkerhard in Urk and Blokgauw 7 and 8 in Edam-Volendam this is even 40 percent. In extremely urbanised neighbourhoods the proportion of children is 14 percent on average.

In spite of this, 30 percent of inhabitants in the extremely urbanised Schildersbuurt in The Hague are aged under 15 years. In Eindhoven there are more children in the suburban neighbourhoods than in the city centre, where more young people live.

Distribution of 15-24 year-olds across neighbourhoods in Eindhoven, 2005

Distribution of 15-24 year-olds across neighbourhoods  in Eindhoven, 2005 

Distribution of 0-14 year-olds across neighbourhoods in Eindhoven, 2005

Distribution of 0-14 year-olds across neighbourhoods  in Eindhoven, 2005

More women in neighbourhoods with older people

In most neighbourhoods, the numbers of men and women are about equal. In neighbourhoods with a high percentage of older people, however, there are often more women than men. This is because women live longer than men on average.

In Eindhoven, for example, there are twenty neighbourhoods where more women than men live. In seventeen of these more than 20 percent of the inhabitants are older than 65 years. For the whole of the country the percentage of older people is clearly lower, at 14 percent.

Distribution of over-65s and women across neighbourhoods in Eindhoven, 2005

Distribution of over-65s and women across neighbourhoods in Eindhoven, 2005

More men near technology universities

There are also neighbourhoods where more men than women live. These neighbourhoods are often near specific institutions such as universities which attract mainly male students (Drienerveld near the University of Twente in Enschede, the TU neighbourhood, where many students at Delft university of technology live), judicial institutions (Veenhuizen) or nursing homes with special sections for male patients (Eckartdal in Eindhoven).

Chantal Melser and Helma Schapendonk-Maas

This is the first in a series of articles on Statistics Netherlands’ neighbourhood statistics.