Claim: Studies show that there are, on average, 800,000 people permanently in Malta.
Verdict: There are no studies that show this. A spokesperson for Delia said this figure is based on projections made in the past. However, these projections predict Malta’s population several years in the future, not in 2025.
During a campaign event on Monday 25 August, PN leadership hopeful Adrian Delia waded into the murky waters of Malta’s population figures, claiming that studies show that Malta’s population is at 800,000 people.
Delia was attempting to drive home a point about overpopulation, one of his campaign’s rallying calls, telling interviewer Andrew Azzopardi that while official figures show a population of over 500,000, the reality was far different.
“In reality, business figures, studies that took place, show that, permanently, there are an average of 800,000 people,” Delia said.
Delia peppered his speech with various other facts and figures about Malta’s population, including that third-country nationals spend an average of 18 months in Malta and that Malta added 140,000 people to its population in the past 12 years.
Where did Delia’s 800,000 figure originate?
In his claim, Delia referred to uncited “business figures” and studies which show Malta’s permanent population to average out at 800,000 people.
However, these studies do not appear to exist.
When asked to refer Times of Malta to the studies, a spokesperson for Delia said “this figure arises from Malta Employers’ Association (MEA) projections in a report from a few years back, Clyde Caruana’s projections in parliament, and tourism arrivals figures”.
‘810,000 by 2070’: MEA
It is unclear which MEA report Delia had in mind.
He may be referring to a July 2023 conference organised by the MEA to discuss Malta’s fertility crisis, which featured several experts expressing their concerns over the country’s ever-shrinking birth rate.
The conference’s report quotes Kirsten Calleja, an economist and MEA consultant, saying that if the current migration rate keeps pace, “the baseline population projection is that in 2070 we reach a peak of 810,000 people, as a population, living on this island”.
If migration rates increase, this figure could be as high as 932,000 in 2070, Calleja warned, while if migration stopped completely, Malta’s population would shrink back down to 311,000 by 2090.
However, at no point does Calleja argue that Malta’s population is currently at 800,000, as Delia claimed.
A previous position paper published by MEA back in 2017 also spoke about Malta’s population, saying it expected Malta’s population to hit 750,000, although it did not say by when.
A year later, the association’s then-president, Dolores Sammut Bonnici predicted that Malta’s population would hit 600,000 over the following three or four years.
However, there is no record of MEA projecting that Malta’s population would be at 800,000 in 2025, nor did the association at any point argue that Malta had already hit that figure.
‘Malta could hit 800,000 by 2040’: Clyde Caruana
Likewise, the reference to projections made by Clyde Caruana is also inaccurate.
Speaking at a conference, Caruana had warned that Malta’s population would balloon to 800,000 by 2040 unless the country’s economic model was overhauled. Caruana had repeated this statement in parliament.
He later told Times of Malta that if current trends continue, Malta’s population would hit 600,000 “by the end of this legislature” in 2027.
Even when factoring in tourist arrivals, there is little to suggest that Malta’s population averages out to 800,000, as Delia claimed.
Official figures show that in 2023, Malta’s population, including tourists, averaged out to 592,746, made up of 552,000 permanent residents and 40,000 tourists.
Even at the height of tourist season, in August, Malta’s population peaked at 628,000 in 2023, including the roughly 75,300 tourists in Malta at any one time, the figures show.
These numbers have undoubtedly increased since then. Malta’s population increased by some 9,000 people by the following year, with the country now on course for another record year for tourist arrivals.
However, there is no data to suggest that Malta’s population hit or came close to 800,000 at peak tourist season this year, let alone that this figure represents Malta’s average population, as Delia claimed.
How long do TCNs spend in Malta?
Although Delia’s claim that third-country nationals spend an average of 18 months in Malta is also speculative, he appears to be closer to the mark in this case.
In reality, there are no recent publicly available studies on how long TCNs typically stay in Malta. However, it’s safe to say that many only spend a relatively short stint in the country.
A 2019 Central Bank study found that just under half of all foreign workers who come to Malta (45%) leave the country between one and two years later.
Almost two-thirds of foreign workers leave within four years, while only 30% of are still in Malta six years after they first arrived, the study found.
However, this study does not appear to distinguish between EU nationals and TCN’s, making it impossible to accurately parse between the two.
A recent study by the Curia’s Justice and Peace Commission into third-country nationals in Malta reached the same conclusion.
“Ideally, such data would be updated for more recent years and disaggregated by type of migrant worker, to better understand such dynamics,” the study’s authors said, referring to the Central Bank’s findings.
However, Delia’s estimate of how Malta’s population has increased over the past 12 years is almost spot-on.
While Delia said that Malta had added 140,000 over the past 12 years, official figures show that Malta’s population has ballooned by just over 149,000 during this period, from 425,384 in 2013 to 574,250 last year.
Population figures a frequent source of misinformation
This is not the first time that Malta’s population figures have been misrepresented.
In 2023, Bernard Grech falsely claimed that Malta’s population had “almost doubled” since 2013, when Labour was first elected.
A year later, a viral Facebook post claimed that Malta’s population had reached 717,000.
Another widely-shared social media post had previously said that foreign residents now outnumber locals, pointing to an unnamed study “based on lease and rental agreements”. Once again, that study turned out not to exist.
Verdict
Delia’s claim that Malta’s population averages 800,000 people is based on projections that have been made over the years.
However, these projections point to Malta’s possible population several years from now, not in 2025. One MEA projection warned that Malta could hit 810,000 people by 2070, while Clyde Caruana pointed to Malta’s population reaching this level by 2040.
Even if tourist arrivals are factored into the equation, there is no indication that Malta’s population has hit 800,000 people at any point so far.
The claim is therefore false, as the evidence clearly refutes the claim.
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Adrian Delia speaking at a campaign event earlier this week. Screenshot: Facebook/Adrian Delia
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Originally published here.
