Podravska, the second most populated statistical region, had 16% of Slovenia’s population in 2021. Its population density was 151 inhabitants per square kilometre. The mean age of the population was 44.5 years. As in the majority of other regions, this region also recorded a natural decrease in 2021 (-4.1 per 1,000 population). However, due to the positive net migration between statistical regions and from abroad (the latter was more significant), the population in 2021 slightly increased over the previous year. The share of people aged 0–14 was the second lowest (13.9%); it was lower only in the Pomurska statistical region. 65.2% of children were born to unmarried mothers. Only two regions had higher shares: Pomurska and Koroška. The mean age of first-time mothers was 29.6 years. This region stood out in terms of the lowest share of married population aged 15+ (40.5%). The share of the population with basic education or less was the second lowest (21.0%), and was lower only in Osrednjeslovenska (18.4%). Moreover, Podravska had the highest share of residents with upper secondary education, i.e. 56.3%.
In 2021, the employment rate was second lowest in Slovenia (61.6%). At 6.2%, the LFS unemployment rate was the highest at the regional level. 17.7% of persons in employment worked outside the region of residence, which is not much since only Osrednjeslovenska (10.3%) and Goriška (17.2%) had lower values. The region generated 12.8% of the national GDP; GDP per capita was the eighth lowest in the country. The region had just under 28,200 enterprises with on average 4.7 persons employed. The at-risk-of-poverty rate was among the highest; 14.1% of people lived below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. In the region, 508 kg of municipal waste per capita was generated and 74.7% of it was collected separately. This ranked Podravska fourth in the country. The region was second in terms of the number of convicted persons (adults and juveniles) per 1,000 population (3.2), the same as Posavska.