Life expectancy, on the other hand, has risen by 10 years over that time, while wages have risen nearly 60-fold, the agency said.

Statistics Estonia has released figures on population, wages, employment sectors, births and marriages and more, to compare the situation today with that of the early 1990s.

The population of Estonia has fallen by 207,004 since 1991: Whereas Estonia's population stood at nearly 1.568 million in 1991, as of January 1 this year it was 1.361 million, Statistics Estonia noted.

Native Estonian speakers now make up 68.5 percent of the population compared with 61.6 percent on the eve of the restoration of independence.

Overall life expectancy in Estonia has risen from 69.6 to 79.8 years. The average age of first-time mothers, meanwhile, has risen from 22.6 in 1991 to 29.4 last year.

The birth rate has gone down too: in 1991, 19,413 children were born compared with 10,173 in 2025, a drop of over 50 percent.

The number of marriages has also declined at a similar rate. Last year, 5,998 marriages were registered, compared with 10,292 in 1991.

On the other hand, gross average wages have risen from just €35 in 1992, to €2,092 last year, a nearly 60-fold rise.

Another massive change compared with 35 years ago is the number of people employed in agriculture, including forestry and fishing. At the time, 152,000 people worked in these sectors, compared with 19,700 last year, or around 13 percent of the 1991 total.

The number of active companies of all sizes has risen from 24,000 in the mid-1990s to 160,000 in 2024.

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