Transition Report 2025-26 launch
Join us online on Tuesday 25 November 2025 at 16.00 (London time) for the launch of the Transition Report 2025-26.
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Transition Report 2025-26
The Transition Report 2025-26 looks at the implications of demographic change for rapidly ageing economies, as well as economies with young, fast-growing populations. It outlines recent demographic trends, including declining fertility rates, and presents strategies that policymakers could deploy in response. These centre on prolonging productive working lives, boosting automation and facilitating labour mobility. The analysis focuses on artificial intelligence and migration policies in the EBRD regions and beyond, as well as ways in which demographic change shapes policy preferences and societal beliefs.
Publication date: 25 November 2025
ISBN: 978-1-898802-56-3
ISSN: 1356-3424
Downloads
Download the individual PDFs of all sections, chapters and country assessments.
Foreword
A grey wave is reshaping the global economy. Fewer births, more retirees and fewer workers to shoulder the fiscal burden of pensions and healthcare have prompted warnings about the economic consequences of ageing. At the other extreme, some argue that artificial intelligence and robots will soon conduct nearly all economically significant activities, making demographic concerns irrelevant. The reality is more complex. New technologies hold promise, but they will not fully compensate for a shrinking workforce. Demographic pressures are powerful, and their effects will weigh heavily on growth and living standards unless they are addressed using smart and proactive policies.
Executive summary
The Transition Report 2025-26 looks at the implications of demographic change for rapidly ageing economies, as well as economies with young, fast-growing populations. It outlines recent demographic trends, including declining fertility rates, and presents strategies that policymakers could deploy in response. These centre on prolonging productive working lives, boosting automation and facilitating labour mobility. The analysis focuses on artificial intelligence and migration policies in the EBRD regions and beyond, as well as ways in which demographic change shapes policy preferences and societal beliefs.
Chapter highlights
Chapter 1
Demographic trends and the future of growth
For most of human history, population growth has been low and stable. However, this changed in the early 20th century, when falling mortality and sustained high fertility led to a sharp acceleration in annual population growth. Today, while some economies are still experiencing the pressures of high population growth, fertility is falling fast in both high- and low-income countries, while global life expectancy has continued to rise.
Chapter 2
Fertility in transition
Globally, the average number of children born per woman has more than halved since the 1960s, from around 5 to 2.25 today. Mirroring this trend, fertility rates have fallen across the EBRD regions, with many economies now at or below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. This reflects both fewer women having children and a decline in the number of births per woman.
Chapter 3
Demographic change and the quest for talent
As workforces have aged in advanced economies and many economies in the EBRD regions, employment has shifted towards more age-friendly jobs – jobs that have a more flexible schedule or involve less physical effort. Advances in AI technology are likely to raise workers’ productivity in some occupations, but displace workers in others. Targeted migration policies can help alleviate bottlenecks in occupations where skilled labour is scarce.
Chapter 4
The political economy of demographic change
Demographic change presents major policy challenges across the EBRD regions. As populations age and fertility rates decline, governments will need to mitigate those effects – for example, by increasing immigration, extending working lives, restructuring pensions and harnessing technological innovation to boost productivity. Yet public support for such reform measures is often weak.
Chapter 5
Structural reform
This chapter presents the latest assessment of transition challenges in the EBRD regions and selected comparator economies, tracking progress in the area of structural reform. The assessment focuses on six key qualities of a sustainable market economy, looking at whether economies are competitive, well governed, green, inclusive, resilient and integrated.
Country assessments
Country assessments – which are only available online – provide a comprehensive overview of macroeconomic developments, policy responses and structural reforms in individual economies over the past year, as well as identifying key priorities for 2026.