The French demographer points out that France has an exceptional demographic situation, which is not typical for European countries, and that the birth rate provides replacement of the population. The population of France, which remained at the level of 40 million people for a long time, began to grow in the second half of the 20th century due to the excess of birth rate over death rate and immigration over emigration. At present, the number of births is 40% higher than the number of deaths, i.e. the surplus for the last five years is 210 thousand people. Recently the number of immigrants exceeds the number of emigrants by 55 thousand (120 thousand against 65 thousand people). Thus, the annual natural population growth of France is 3-4 times higher than the migration balance.
In comparison with other European countries, the demographic growth in France over the last 25 years is exceptional in its stability and scale. France currently accounts for two-thirds of the natural population growth in the EU, although its population represents only 16% of the total population of the EU member states. This is three times the natural population growth of the United Kingdom, twice as high as in the Benelux and Scandinavian countries. In Italy and Germany, mortality has been higher than birth rates for several years.
In 1999, 11 out of 15 EU member states experienced a higher migration rate than natural. Five countries (Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, and Sweden) have experienced natural population decline, while six countries (Great Britain, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Portugal) have so far experienced insignificant natural growth. In general, apart from France, the natural population growth exceeds the annual migration balance only in the Netherlands, Finland, and Ireland. Outside the EU, only Norway is in a similar position. All this, the author believes, indicates the special position of France in the EU in terms of population growth.
The author then analyses the dynamics of fertility in France between 1946 and 2000. During the baby boom period, which lasted until 1964, the number of births exceeded 800 thousand people per year, and the fertility rate ranged from 3 to 2.7-2.9 (p. 21). The Baby Boom period was also extended to 1965-1974, when the absolute number of births remained high, thanks to the fact that women of 1948-1965, who were more numerous than women of previous generations, had reached the age of childbearing. The end of the Baby Boom in the mid-1970s simply meant a return to a long-lasting and temporarily interrupted trend.
Since the mid-1990s, the number of women of childbearing age, who had peaked by 1990, has been declining steadily, with fewer generations of women of the 1970s and subsequent decades entering their reproductive years. According to some demographers, France is experiencing a change in the substitution threshold of 2.1 children per woman, which is now approaching 1.5. According to the census, the age of first birth continues to shift to 30 years. French women are guided by a model in which women prefer to have their first child at around 30 years of age and the second after 30. However, the statistics for 1995-2000 do not support pessimistic forecasts: the fertility index has increased from 1.65 children per woman in 1994 to 1.9 in 2000. This has made it possible not only to overcome but also to compensate for the decline in the number of women of childbearing age. The number of live-born children increased from 711,000 in 1994 to 779,000 in 2000 (p. 23).
Analysis of the birth rate during the economic recession in 1992-1994 shows that the global economic recession may force couples to change their plans regarding the birth of children and postpone it to better times. Since 1997, France has seen an increase in the average age of motherhood from 26.5 to 29.4 years. At the same time, fertility rates for women over 30 years of age continued to rise. Currently, only 20 percent of women in France give birth to their first-born child at the age of 25, compared to 50 percent in 1980 (p. 24). At the same time, the age at which three-quarters of women already have children has risen from 28 to 33 years. According to data from the past two years, the number of births by mothers under 30 years of age has begun to rise again in France. Thus, it is possible that the reproductive behavior of young people will change.