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The Demographic Situation of Europe and the Developed Countries Overseas: An Annual Report
Volume 57 2002/1
Recent Demographic Trends in the Developed Countries
Jean-Paul Sardon [*] Jean-Paul Sardon, Observatoire démographique européen, 2bis rue du Prieuré, 78107 Saint Germain-en-Laye Cedex, tél.: 33 0(1) 39 10 25 00, fax: 33 0(1) 39 10 25 08
The approximate stability of Continental Europe as a whole is due solely to the growth of population in western Europe, mainly from immigration. In central and eastern Europe, and in Russia, natural increase is negative, and only Russia experiences positive net migration. The growth rate of the European Union’s population is 2.4 times less than the United States, and its natural increase 6 times less.
The total fertility rate of the Union has been rising slightly since 1998 and amounts to 1.50 children per woman in 2000, i.e., 0.6 children fewer than the United States. It is rising in almost all western European countries, ranging from 1.23 children per woman in Italy to 2.08 in Iceland. The lowest fertility is encountered in central and eastern Europe: from 1.11 children per woman in Armenia to 1.21 in Russia, with the Czech Republic (1.14) and probably Ukraine falling in between. The slight rise observed in 2000 does not reflect a broadly shared desire to bear a child for the millennium and does not call into question the near-general decrease in lifetime fertility of the cohorts born since the late 1950s.
Marriage rates are rising in most western European countries, but have generally declined in central and eastern Europe to levels that are below those of western Europe.
Average life expectancy is still making progress in western Europe, with slightly higher gains for men. Net gains have also been recorded in all eastern European countries except Moldova and especially Russia, where male life expectancy lost another year in 2000. La única causa de la relativa estabilidad demográfica del continente europeo es el crecimiento registrado en Europa Occidental, debido esencialmente a la inmigración. Tanto en Europa Central como en Europa del Este y en Rusia, el crecimiento natural es negativo, y el saldo migratorio únicamente es positivo en Rusia.
La tasa de crecimiento demográfico de la Unión Europea es 2,4 veces inferior a la registrada en Estados Unidos y el crecimiento natural es 6 veces inferior. El índice sintético de fecundidad ha aumentado ligeramente en la Unión Europea desde 1998. En el año 2000 se situaba en 1,5 hijos por mujer, 0,6 hijos por debajo de Estados Unidos. El índice aumenta en casi todos los países de Europa Occidental, y va desde 1,23 hijos por mujer en Italia a 2,08 en Islandia. Las fecundidades más bajas se registran en Europa Central y del Este: de 1,11 hijos por mujer en Armenia a 1,21 en Rusia, pasando por la República Checa (1,14) y Ucrania. El ligero aumento de la fecundidad observado en el 2000 no refleja una voluntad compartida de tener un hijo al inicio del milenio y no pone en cuestión la disminución casi general de la descendencia final de las mujeres nacidas a partir de finales de los años 50.
La nupcialidad sigue aumentando en la mayoría de países de Europa Occidental pero disminuye en Europa Central y del Este, donde el nivel general es inferior al registrado en Occidente.
La esperanza de vida sigue progresando en Europa Occidental, donde los mayores avances se registran entre los hombres. En el Este, todos los países registran a su vez aumentos netos excepto Moldavia y Rusia, donde la esperanza de vida masculina todavía disminuyó 1 año durante el 2000.
The total fertility rate of the Union has been rising slightly since 1998 and amounts to 1.50 children per woman in 2000, i.e., 0.6 children fewer than the United States. It is rising in almost all western European countries, ranging from 1.23 children per woman in Italy to 2.08 in Iceland. The lowest fertility is encountered in central and eastern Europe: from 1.11 children per woman in Armenia to 1.21 in Russia, with the Czech Republic (1.14) and probably Ukraine falling in between. The slight rise observed in 2000 does not reflect a broadly shared desire to bear a child for the millennium and does not call into question the near-general decrease in lifetime fertility of the cohorts born since the late 1950s.
Marriage rates are rising in most western European countries, but have generally declined in central and eastern Europe to levels that are below those of western Europe.
Average life expectancy is still making progress in western Europe, with slightly higher gains for men. Net gains have also been recorded in all eastern European countries except Moldova and especially Russia, where male life expectancy lost another year in 2000. La única causa de la relativa estabilidad demográfica del continente europeo es el crecimiento registrado en Europa Occidental, debido esencialmente a la inmigración. Tanto en Europa Central como en Europa del Este y en Rusia, el crecimiento natural es negativo, y el saldo migratorio únicamente es positivo en Rusia.
La tasa de crecimiento demográfico de la Unión Europea es 2,4 veces inferior a la registrada en Estados Unidos y el crecimiento natural es 6 veces inferior. El índice sintético de fecundidad ha aumentado ligeramente en la Unión Europea desde 1998. En el año 2000 se situaba en 1,5 hijos por mujer, 0,6 hijos por debajo de Estados Unidos. El índice aumenta en casi todos los países de Europa Occidental, y va desde 1,23 hijos por mujer en Italia a 2,08 en Islandia. Las fecundidades más bajas se registran en Europa Central y del Este: de 1,11 hijos por mujer en Armenia a 1,21 en Rusia, pasando por la República Checa (1,14) y Ucrania. El ligero aumento de la fecundidad observado en el 2000 no refleja una voluntad compartida de tener un hijo al inicio del milenio y no pone en cuestión la disminución casi general de la descendencia final de las mujeres nacidas a partir de finales de los años 50.
La nupcialidad sigue aumentando en la mayoría de países de Europa Occidental pero disminuye en Europa Central y del Este, donde el nivel general es inferior al registrado en Occidente.
La esperanza de vida sigue progresando en Europa Occidental, donde los mayores avances se registran entre los hombres. En el Este, todos los países registran a su vez aumentos netos excepto Moldavia y Rusia, donde la esperanza de vida masculina todavía disminuyó 1 año durante el 2000.
I. Population change [1]
The population of Europe (including the European successor republics of the former USSR) stood at 742.2 million on 1 January 2001. This represented 132,000 fewer people than the year before, and the drop was somewhat more substantial than in 1999, when the population decreased by 41,000.
Across the continent, population trends are becoming ever more diversified (Table A). While growth rates in 1999 ranged from +3.3% in western Europe to –5.6% in eastern Europe, they ranged from +3.9% to –6.6% in 2000 for the countries in the two regions. Western Europe’s higher population growth in 2000 stemmed mainly (60% of the growth) from a rise in net migration from +953,000 to +1,095,000, even though the rate of natural increase rose by 29% compared to the previous year. The pace of decline quickened everywhere else except in Russia, even with a slight downturn of natural increase in that country. The biggest decline is now to be found in the former Soviet republics.
Table A
Population of selected broad geographical regions
The population of the European Union as of 1 January 2000 has been revised slightly downwards compared to last year’s report, not least because France’s 1999 census population is 470,000 lower than the estimates based on the last census. Spain’s population has been revised down by 291,000 in 2000 and by 125,000 in 1999.
The population of eastern Europe was also adjusted downwards by nearly 400,000 as of 1 January 2000, as a result of adjustments in Estonia (–67,000), Latvia (–44,000) and Ukraine (–254,000). In contrast, the United States’ population increased by over 1.5 million people.
While natural increase is still positive in western Europe, and is even markedly higher than last year, immigration accounts for more than 60% of its population growth. Central Europe stands out in that its net migration amounts to 6 times the deficit of births over deaths. Population decline elsewhere in Europe is mainly attributable to the excess of deaths over births, made worse, except in Russia, by net migration.
In Japan, the growth rate appears to have come sharply down in 1999: net migration became negative and cuts in two the effect of natural increase which is almost twice, in relative terms, that recorded in western Europe. In the United States, population growth is sustained by a large surplus of births over deaths (two thirds of growth) and by strong immigration.
Iceland registered western Europe’s strongest relative growth (15.3‰), largely because of robust natural increase, ahead of Luxembourg (12.8‰) despite its high immigration, Spain (9.7‰), the Netherlands (7.7‰), Portugal (6.3‰), Norway (5.6‰) and Switzerland (5.5‰). Ireland slipped back from a high growth rate (11‰) in 1999 to one of the region’s lowest (1‰) with Germany (0.4‰) in 2000.
While population grows slowly across western Europe, it declines throughout central and eastern Europe with the exceptions of Albania, the successor states of former Yugoslavia
[2], the Slovak Republic and Azerbaijan (Table 1). The decline of population was sharpest in eastern Europe — almost 39‰ in Georgia, 9‰ in Ukraine, 6‰ in Latvia, and over 5‰ in Bulgaria and Russia.
Population decline in the countries of eastern Europe reflects the growing birth deficits these countries have been contending with since the collapse of the old socialist system. Natural increase remains positive only in Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Slovakia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
While no country of the European Union slipped into negative growth, four have a negative rate of natural increase (Table B). This has been the case for several years in Germany, Italy, Sweden and Greece, and the deficit is largely cancelled out by immigration. Austria resumed its positive natural increase after experiencing a surplus of deaths over births in 1999.
Table B
Population growth factors in EU countries (2000)
Western Europe’s highest rates of natural increase are found in Iceland (9‰) and Ireland (6‰). These levels are reached or exceeded elsewhere in the continent only by Azerbaijan (9‰), and probably Macedonia and Albania.
With one of the European Union’s highest migration growth rates in 1999, Ireland appears to be the only member state to register more departures than arrivals. Spain (9‰) overtook Luxembourg (8‰) as the country with the highest growth rate due to migration. The overall population growth in the European Union is 20% higher than that recorded for 1999, and net migration accounts for three-quarters of the rise.
But the apparent precision of this picture may be deceptive, because the quality of migration data is poor. They may well be underestimated. In central and eastern Europe, this would affect the figures for emigration, and in western Europe, those for immigration.
II. Fertility
For the whole continent, nearly 7.5 million births were registered in 2000, an increase of 1.5% over the previous year
[3]. The crude birth rate was 10.08‰, against 9.93‰ a year before. Births increased by about the same number in western Europe and Russia, slightly narrowing the gap between the birth rates of the two regions: in 1999, the gap was between 8.3‰ in Russia and 10.7‰ in western Europe, and in 2000 only between 8.7‰ and 10.8‰. In central Europe the birth rate rose slightly from 10.1‰ in 1999 to 10.3‰ in 2000, but in eastern Europe it slipped from 9.1‰ to 9.0‰.
The number of births in the European Union had levelled off in 1999, but that was not sufficient to stop the decline of the birth rate. The numbers are up in 2000, and the birth rate is slightly above its 1998 and 1999 levels (Table C1). The recovery of the birth rate which in 1999 had only affected Southern Europe, France and Luxembourg, continues and is now reaching most countries of western Europe, with the exception of Germany, Austria, Finland, Norway, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, where the decline continues, and Greece where the rate has been stable since 1995 (Table 2). Elsewhere in Europe, the recovery of the birth rate is also spreading: Bulgaria, Belarus, Estonia and Latvia that had already recorded rises in 1999 are now joined by the successor states of the former Yugoslav federation, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Russia. Thus, in almost half of the countries of central and eastern Europe, the trend towards a declining number of births that prevailed since the collapse of the socialist system has been reversed.
Table C1
Birth and fertility rates in the European Union
On the whole, even if the birth rate of the European Union, or of western Europe, may seem relatively favourable in the larger European context, it still falls short of the levels in excess of 12‰ observed in some developed countries overseas such as the United States (14.7‰), New Zealand (14.8 ‰) and Australia (13.1‰). It is close, however, to that of Canada (10.8‰) and higher than that of Japan (9.4‰).
The computation of total fertility rates that are free from the parasitic effect of the age distribution makes it possible to sharpen the focus. For the entire European Union, a total fertility of 1.5 children per woman was estimated in 2000, for an increase of 3 hundredths that seems to confirm the upswing engaged in 1999. In 2000, total fertility rises in all the countries of western Europe, except Germany, where it has remained broadly unchanged for four years, Finland, where it slipped back by 1 hundredth, and the United Kingdom, where it fell by 3 hundredths (Table 3). In the three Mediterranean countries (Spain, Greece and Italy) total fertility is still below 1.3 children per woman; it is between 1.3 and 1.4 in Austria and Germany, between 1.5 and 1.6 in Portugal, Switzerland and Sweden, between 1.6 and 1.7 in the United Kingdom and Belgium, between 1.7 and 1.8 in the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and Luxembourg, and between 1.8 and 1.9 in Norway, Ireland and France. Only in Iceland does it exceed 2 children per woman. Iceland and France registered the highest rises with 9 and 10 hundredths, respectively.
Elsewhere in Europe, too, fertility rose everywhere, except in Croatia, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Moldova and the Caucasian republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). The sharpest upturns were recorded for Estonia (15 hundredths) and Macedonia (12 hundredths).
Albania (2.1 children per woman in 1999) stands out with Iceland (2.08 in 2000) as Europe’s most fertile country, ahead of Ireland and France (1.89), Macedonia (1.88) and Norway (1.85). Elsewhere, total fertility is below 1.8 children per woman, and fertility is lowest of all in central and eastern Europe: 1.10 children per woman in Ukraine (in 1999), 1.11 in Armenia, 1.14 in the Czech Republic, 1.21 in Russia and 1.24 in Latvia (a level comparable to that of western Europe’s least fertile countries, Spain and Italy).
Fertility in Bulgaria and Latvia, which had fallen to record lows
[4] of 1.09 children per woman in 1997 and 1.10 in 1998, maintained the slight upturn engaged in 1999 (1.23 and 1.18 children per woman) and now stands at 1.26 and 1.24 children per woman, respectively. The Czech Republic’s fertility decline seems to have been halted, although for the fifth year running it remains below 1.2 children per woman. Excluding the territory of the former GDR, only Spain and Italy have recorded similarly low fertility for an almost equally long period, but today their total fertility rates have risen to 1.24 and 1.23 children per woman, respectively.
By contrast, fertility is declining steadily in Armenia, where total fertility has fallen from 1.60 children per woman in 1996 to 1.11 in 2000, in Lithuania (from 1.43 to 1.27 over the same period), the Slovak Republic (from 1.47 to 1.29), Poland (from 1.59 to 1.34), Croatia (from 1.67 to 1.36) and Moldova (from 1.67 in 1998 to 1.30 in 2000).
The United States continues to stand out. Its total fertility is above that of all other developed countries and has been rising steadily since 1995 to reach 2.13 children per woman in 2000, a level that had not been observed since the early 1970s. As last year, this relatively high and rising level is due to the high fertility of the women of central American origin who constitute a growing share of the United States’ population.
1. Fertility in the year 2000
[5]
In the months preceding new year’s eve of 2000, numerous voices announced a possible European millennium baby boom. What is the real picture now that all the data are in for 2000?
As mentioned above, the number of births rose by only 1.5% in Europe as a whole, and by 1.2% in the European Union. Iceland posted the highest growth (5.2%), ahead of France (4.8%), Spain (4.1%), Portugal (3.4%), the Netherlands (3.1%), Italy (3.0%), Sweden (2.6%) and Luxembourg (2.5%). Total births actually declined in three western European countries: Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom. Elsewhere, among the countries of central and eastern Europe, but also among the developed countries overseas, birth totals rose by more than 3% only in Macedonia (7.3%), Slovenia (3.7%), Hungary (3.1%), Russia (4.3%), Estonia (4.3%) and Latvia (4.4%), and actually declined in Slovakia (–1.9%).
As far as total fertility is concerned, the trends are not very different, but growth is generally somewhat higher. With a rise of 5.6%, France this time is ahead of Iceland (4.6%), the Netherlands (4.3%), Spain (3.3%), Belgium (3.2%), Sweden (3.1%), Luxembourg (3.0%) and Portugal (2.7%). Elsewhere, Estonia posted the highest fertility rise (12.3%), followed by Macedonia (6.9%), Latvia (5.8%), Slovenia (3.7%), Russia (3.5%) and Hungary (2.9%).
But to establish a connection between these rises and the specific dateline 2000, it would be necessary to have data on what happened afterwards, i.e., how total fertility evolved in 2001, or at least during the first quarter of that year. Unfortunately, such information is available only for a bare handful of countries concerned with the upswing of the year 2000: France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Hungary (Table C2).
Table C2
Total fertility (number of children per woman) around the year 2000
Among the countries of western Europe where fertility rose by more than 2.5%, we single out those for which the hinge period 1999-2000 marks a break in the trend of quarterly total fertility rates
[6]. This is the case for France and the Netherlands where the relative rises in total fertility reached 6.9% and 3.6% respectively in the first quarter of 2000, compared with the final quarter of 1999. In Belgium, Spain, Iceland and Sweden, the rate rose fairly steadily with no observable turn-of-century acceleration, while in Portugal, the upturn dates from the second half of the year. It would not appear, therefore, that the millennium incited couples to bear more children. But only the fertility levels for the early months of 2001
[7] will tell for sure. In fact, a decline in this period could still be evidence of a temporary rise characteristic of the year 2000
[8].
Luxembourg’s first quarter 2000 fertility rise is all the more remarkable as the quarterly indices had steadily declined throughout 1999; this makes it particularly hard to explain the trend reversal. The fertility levels recorded during the remaining three quarters of 2000 are barely above that for 1999. This peculiar trend may simply be the result of postponement of births from the fourth (and even third) quarter of 1999 to the first quarter of 2000, but the available information is not sufficient to reach a conclusion. In the Netherlands, the relatively strong increase in the total fertility rate during the first months of 2000, the fact that it remained at the highest level reached for the rest of the year and fell sharply (by 5%) right from the start of 2001, argues for a specific millennium effect on fertility. Things are less straightforward in France; while the sharp fertility rise at the start of 2000 offers prima facie evidence of significant behavioural change, its unchanged level in early 2001 may suggest that a different phenomenon is involved, or even a combination of two phenomena: a millennium effect and an upward trend sustained by other factors
[9]. Here again, the picture should become clearer when more data become available.
In four of the other six countries for which at least some information is available, the millennium also saw a significant rise in fertility: 12.9% in Macedonia, 7.9% in Estonia, 5.6% in Slovenia and 4.6% in Latvia. But lack of data for 2001 makes it impossible to say whether these countries are more like France or the Netherlands. Only Hungary comes close to the Netherlands, although with a slightly lower percentage rise in the first quarter 2000 followed by a less pronounced drop in 2001 (+2.6% and –3.2% in Hungary, against +3.6% and –5.1% in the Netherlands)
2. Cohort fertility
The recovery of fertility observed in many countries during the year 2000 has led to a slight upwards revision of the estimated completed fertility of cohorts based on the 1999 data, but does not cast doubt on the general decrease in the completed fertility of women born since the late 1950s (Table 4).
In almost all the countries of western Europe, the levelling off of completed fertility — or even its rise in the Scandinavian countries — observed for women born during the 1950s, gave way to a resumption of the decline with the cohorts born in the early 1960s. Denmark, where completed fertility has remained unchanged at 1.9 children per woman since the 1960 cohort, has not yet witnessed this reversal. In contrast, cohort fertility has risen significantly in Luxembourg, with lifetime fertility increasing from 1.68 children per woman born in 1954 to 1.82 for those born in 1965.
A handful of western European countries like Italy, Spain, Austria, Iceland and Ireland have experienced falling fertility almost uninterruptedly, at least in recent times. Apart from the countries where the onset of the fertility decline was late — Iceland, where completed fertility of the 1965 birth cohort was 2.32 children per woman, and Ireland, where that of the 1964 birth cohort was 2.21 — Norway today has the highest completed fertility. It is close to replacement level (2.07 children for women born in 1965). Everywhere else in western Europe, completed fertility is below 2 children per woman
[10], including in France where, after being the highest level in the European Union for ten cohorts (1951-1960), it dropped to just 1.99 children per woman for the 1965 cohort. In Germany, for the same birth cohort of 1965, completed fertility does not exceed 1.51 children per woman, while in Italy it is probably close to the same level.
The picture elsewhere in Europe is not rosier. Only Albania, Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have a fertility level — at least for women born about 1965 — close to the maximum values recorded in Iceland and Ireland. But the sharp drop in subsequent Armenian cohorts means that lifetime fertility among the 1969 cohort is unlikely to exceed 1.8 children per woman. In Albania, where the demographic transition occurred very late, the completed fertility of women born in 1966 is below 2.4 children per woman, a fall of 0.6 children in the space of eight cohorts. By contrast, that of the 1969 cohort is not above 1.53 in Russia and 1.55 in Ukraine, and will barely top 1.6 in Romania and Belarus.
Because of the lack of new information for the overseas industrialized countries, we can only reiterate the findings of last year’s review. The evolution of completed fertility in the United States, Australia and New Zealand mirrors closely that of western Europe, but at a slightly higher level. Total fertility of the 1962 cohort numbers 2.02, 2.09 and 2.27 children per woman, respectively, in these countries. Japanese lifetime fertility, by contrast, has remained fairly constant at around 2 children between the 1931 and 1956 cohorts, but has declined sharply since then. Mean cohort fertility for the 1962 generation will be no more than 1.68 — approximately equal to the lowest fertility countries of western Europe.
The mean age of childbearing is still rising in all
[11] western European countries (Table 5). For women born in 1965, it exceeds 29 years in Denmark (29.1 years), Finland and Luxembourg (29.2 years), as well as in Switzerland (29.3), and is approaching 30 years in the Netherlands (29.9) and Ireland (29.8). At the other end of the range, the mean age of childbearing of women born in 1965 is around 27 years in Greece (26.8) and Austria (27.2).
Central and especially eastern European countries are often still at the stage reached by the western European countries before the first postwar cohorts: the decline of completed fertility is accompanied by earlier childbearing. The mean age of childbearing of women born in the mid-1960s has levelled off, however, in Latvia, Slovakia, Poland and Russia, and has risen in Romania, Bulgaria and Estonia. This stage had already been reached by the cohorts born in the latter half of the 1950s in the successor states of the former Yugoslav federation, and in Hungary and the Czech Republic. In most countries of the former Soviet Union, by contrast, women have their children earlier and earlier, although stabilization may be in sight except in the Caucasus.
This lag in the evolutions has widened the gap in mean ages of childbearing between eastern and western Europe, and it is now about 4 years. While mean age of childbearing in western Europe is around 28-29 years, it is still only around 24-25 years in the former Socialist bloc.
3. Age at first birth and permanent infertility
The information used here exists only for those countries that record birth order among all mother’s births, and this excludes three of the most populous western European countries that record birth order in the current marriage (Germany and the United Kingdom) or used to do so (France). To fill part of this gap, at least as regards levels, we used estimates for these countries published by France Prioux
[12].
Mean age at first birth and mean age at childbearing evolve in similar ways. Mean age at first birth, however, anticipates and amplifies the changes in the age of childbearing, all birth orders combined, which is a weighted average of the age at childbearing at different orders. A reduction in completed fertility tends to increase the weight of the first birth, notwithstanding a rise in the share of childless women.
Mother’s age at first birth is rising rapidly in all western European countries except Sweden, where the increase has slowed down among women born during the 1960s. In central and eastern Europe, the levels are stable — as in Macedonia and Yugoslavia — or have recently begun to edge upwards, although the increase is anything but insignificant in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, where it is close to a year over the 1960s cohorts of women (Table 6). Only two countries buck this trend: Russia, where age at first birth is falling but shows signs of levelling off, and Slovenia where the increase is more recent than in western Europe but no less robust (+2 years between the 1960 and 1970 cohorts). It is true that the behaviour of Slovenian couples in many ways closely mirrors that of German-speaking Europe. While Bulgaria may still have the youngest mothers of all, age at first birth is now lowest in Russia for women born in the early 1970s.
Central and eastern European women have their first child on average 4 years younger than their western counterparts. While age at first birth does not exceed 24 in any of the former Socialist bloc countries — excepting Slovenia — it is never below 25.5 in western Europe, and is even approaching 29 in the Netherlands. This postponement of first motherhood to such advanced ages raises questions about the risks of involuntary childlessness run by the couples, despite the advances of medically assisted reproduction.
The recovery of fertility in 2000 and the continued process of catching up on births that had been previously deferred have led us to revise slightly downwards the estimates of permanent infertility
[13] that we had published previously. It remains true, however, that the proportion of childless women is rising rapidly and will probably exceed 20% among women born in the mid-1960s in at least six European countries: Austria, Finland, Ireland, England and Wales, and Italy, plus Germany, at least in its western part (Table 7). This level will not be reached in central and eastern Europe until the 1970s cohorts, and Polish women will be the first to post such high infertility. Conversely, infertility could be below 9% in Portugal, but the very low values recorded particularly for the mid1960s cohorts lead to the suspicion that — as in Bulgaria, in all of former Yugoslavia, and possibly in Romania — the data may (or may have in the past) strongly underestimate the permanent infertility levels.
While infertility levels have until recently been much lower in central and eastern Europe, the women born in the late 1960s and early 1970s are adopting patterns of behaviour that grow ever closer to those of western European women, and the levels of infertility are becoming very similar.
III. Marriage and divorce
Nuptiality across western Europe has presented a mixed picture since the early 1990s (Table 8
[14]):
- period rates have fallen in most countries, for example in the United Kingdom, but they have begun to rise again in recent years: slightly in Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and more sharply in Sweden. The rise has been going for a little longer in France [15] and the Netherlands, while in a few countries the rates have levelled off, sometimes after a temporary recovery (Spain and Norway), sometimes not (Belgium);
- nuptiality is relatively stable in Austria, Germany and Finland with a slight tendency to rise in the latter two countries;
- the indices are rising in Denmark and especially in Iceland where the female first marriage rate went from 448‰ to 698‰ between 1990 and 2000.
As with fertility, but somewhat less markedly, the marriage rate in 2000 was higher than in 1999 almost everywhere. Strong differences remain in the levels, with female first marriage rates ranging from 518‰ in Belgium to 727‰ in Denmark (against 464‰ in Sweden and 670‰ in Denmark in 1999)
[16].
In central and eastern Europe, the fall of the old Socialist order led to a steep fall of the first marriage rates, that is now being cushioned in countries such as Hungary and Estonia. Only Slovenia, with its long-standing decline in the marriage rate, and Croatia and Macedonia, where the rates returned to their initial level after a temporary drop, stand outside this trend.
Female nuptiality in the region is lower in this part of Europe than in the west, and it has now fallen to levels never seen in western Europe: 336‰ in Armenia in 2000, i.e., little more than in East Germany at the height of the 1991-1992 crisis (312‰ and 318‰, respectively). With Armenia, Estonia and Latvia have the lowest rates.
In the east as in the west, the evolution continues in line with previous trends, even though results for the year 2000 do not confirm the rise observed in countries such as Armenia, Bulgaria, Poland and Slovenia, and the decline has been reversed into an upturn in Azerbaijan, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Yugoslavia.
Available statistics on extra-marital birth for all countries help to remedy somewhat the lack of information on the frequency of cohabitation
[17]. Their increase reflects at least to some extent the increase in the number of consensual unions; to some extent only, since the tolerance of various societies towards such births is also a factor.
At any rate, the share of extra-marital births has risen everywhere (Table 9) except in Denmark where it has decreased slightly since 1995, but has held remarkably steady for the past dozen years around 45%, as well as in Azerbaijan where it remains very low (5.4% in 2000). The frequency of extramarital births varies very widely in western as well as in central and eastern Europe, although with a somewhat narrower spread in the latter region — from 5.4% in Azerbaijan to 54.5% to Estonia, compared to a western European range from 3.9% (Greece) to 65.8% (Iceland).
In most western European countries where the proportion is above 30% (Scandinavian countries, France and the United Kingdom), the increase is beginning to slow down, quite abruptly as we noted above for Denmark. While there has been generally little change in the ranking of countries for twenty or thirty years, it should be observed that the German-speaking countries (Germany, and especially Austria) or Portugal, that were among the countries with the highest number of extra-marital births in the 1970s, have now been joined or overtaken by many countries. For example, Austria had a slightly lower proportion than Ireland in 2000. The most marked rises in recent years have occurred in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain, where extra-marital births are still not frequent (fewer than 25%). Greece, Italy and Switzerland are the last western European countries where children born out of wedlock still account for 10% or less of all live births.
In central and eastern Europe, this is still true of Croatia, Macedonia and Azerbaijan. At the opposite end, the Baltic States (excepting Lithuania, although the frequency there is rising rapidly), Slovenia, Bulgaria and Georgia have the highest frequency of extra-marital births, accounting for over 30% of all births. The rate of increase of out-of-wedlock births is also slowing down in these countries, except in Georgia and, most of all, in Bulgaria where the past decade’s very rapid increase seems to be evidence of the diffusion of cohabitation.
Marriages are less frequent and also increasingly unstable, as demonstrated by the steadily rising period divorce rate throughout Europe. In western Europe the available indices for the year 2000 are all above those of 1999 except for Luxembourg, where a very minor dip is akin to a level-ling-off, and especially for Switzerland, discussed below. The divorce rate seems to be plateauing in countries like Denmark (consistently lower since 1990 than in the 1980s), Norway (decreasing since 1995), Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
In western Europe, two worlds coexist in the area of divorce: Southern Europe, with a comparatively low rate of 10% to 20%, except in Portugal where it reached 26.2% in 2000, and Northern Europe, where the rate ranges from 38.3% in the Netherlands to 54.9% in Sweden.
In central and eastern Europe the resort to divorce is also very uneven. The Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Russia, Belarus, Hungary and the Czech Republic are closer to Northern Europe with rates above 30%, while in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland the rates are equal to or lower than 21%. In some countries, especially those with comparatively high frequencies, divorce has declined in recent years, a fact that must be linked with the sharp decline of marriage since the collapse of socialism.
In Switzerland the number of divorces was halved between 1999 and 2000, because of a new law that came into force on 1 January 2000. The law shifted from fault to failure of the marriage as the underlying principle, and this forces the courts to assess whether greater harm to individuals and society will result from keeping the marriage intact than from dissolving it. The new law also involves the children more by allowing their views to be heard in court. That has resulted in more protracted proceedings, at least initially. The fact had already been observed in West Germany after a similar reform of the divorce law in the late 1970s, or in the Czech Republic after the overhaul of the family code to give increased protection to children
[18]. The relatively sharp rise in the divorce rate in 1999 probably reflects an attempt by the courts to dispose of as many pending cases as possible in anticipation of the new law. This situation could be repeated in 2002 in France, where the notion of fault as a basis for divorce will be replaced from 1 January by that of irretrievable breakdown of the marital bond.
IV. Abortion
The quality of abortion statistics varies widely throughout continental Europe and over time because they depend on the status of abortion itself (legality, legal restrictions, etc.), and of its registration. In some countries ― Austria, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg and Portugal ― there is no systematic abortion registration, and only partial statistics or estimates are available. In Austria, for instance, the statistics only cover hospital procedures and until 1988 they included miscarriages. In other countries — France in particular, but also Spain and Italy — official registration coverage is not complete. In France, for example, the estimated actual number of induced abortions exceeds registrations by more than a third.
Of all the population statistics reviewed in this report, the delay in the compilation of data is largest for the number of abortions, and especially so for the western European countries. While the 2000 estimates are already in for over half the countries of central and eastern Europe, they are only available for five western European countries, and over half the information for 1999 is still missing (Tables 11A and 11B).
The frequency of abortion has risen slightly in recent years, but in many countries it is still below what it was twenty years ago. Belgium and the Netherlands have the lowest frequency with fewer than 12 abortions per 100 live births, i.e., three times fewer than in Sweden (34% in 2000).
In contrast, abortion is still a much-used method of birth control in central and eastern Europe, so that the number of abortions commonly exceeds the number of births in that part of Europe, with Russia topping the league with 183 abortions for 100 births in 1998.
Almost everywhere in the region, women resort less frequently to abortion, and this is probably a sign that modern contraceptive methods are diffusing. The decline is particularly marked in some countries, and notably in Belarus, where the number of abortions for 100 births dropped from 192 to 130 between 1994 and 2000, in Romania and Moldova where it was almost halved between 1995 and 2000 (from 212 to 110 and 101 to 55, respectively), and in Latvia and Bulgaria where it fell by more than 30 points within the space of two or three years.
Only Poland, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Croatia, Slovakia and Albania can claim abortion rates akin to those of western Europe ― below 35%.
V. Mortality
In the European Union, the crude death rate that had remained stable at 9.9‰ for three years fell to 9.7‰ in 2000 (Table D). This good result is shared by almost every country in western Europe, as mortality rises only in Spain and stays unchanged in Belgium, Switzerland and Greece (Table 2). The sharpest fall occurs in the United Kingdom (10.6‰ to 10.2‰, a drop of 0.4‰), followed by Norway (from 10.1‰ to 9.8‰) and Portugal (from 10.6‰ to 10.3‰).
Table D
Mortality and expectation of life in the European Union
Iceland is the country of western Europe with the lowest crude death rate (6.7‰), ahead of Ireland (8.2‰), Luxembourg (8.6‰), Switzerland (8.7‰) and the Netherlands (8.8‰). At the other end of the range, Denmark has the highest crude death rate (10.9‰), ahead of Sweden, another Scandinavian country (10.5‰), Portugal and Belgium (10.3‰), the United Kingdom and Germany (10.2‰).
In 2000 the crude death rate stands at 10.8‰ in central Europe and 13.2‰ in eastern Europe. The evolution in that part of Europe during the year 2000 was somewhat less favourable than in the west, since the death rate rises in about half the countries. Russia, with Ukraine the country where the death rate is highest, has deteriorated most, with a rise of 0.6‰ in a year and of 1.8 in two years, ahead of Estonia (+0.7), Georgia, Ukraine and Bulgaria (+0.5). The sharpest falls are seen in Moldova (–1.8), Hungary and Belarus (–0.7).
But to assess mortality trends and rank countries according to their health situation, expectation of life at birth is a better indicator than the crude death rate, because the latter is strongly influenced by the age structure of the population.
The average duration of life continues to increase in the countries of western Europe: of the 14 countries for which the expectation of life at birth is available for 2000, only two ― Iceland, a sparsely populated country where random fluctuations may be important, and Sweden ― register a slight setback of one tenth of a year among females only (Table 12). Elsewhere, female life expectancy at birth has either levelled off as in Finland and Switzerland, or risen, sometimes sharply as in Spain and Portugal, with gains of 6 and 5 tenths of a year respectively, in the United Kingdom (4 tenths), Denmark, France and Norway (3 tenths). Austria and Luxembourg made slighter gains (2 tenths), as did Ireland and the Netherlands (1 tenth of a year). The expectation of life of men across western Europe made larger gains in 2000 than that of women. Unfortunately we do not yet have an estimate of expectation of life for the European Union as a whole, but the foregoing observations and Eurostat estimates for 1999 suggest that both sexes are likely to post significant gains in life expectancy similar to those recorded for 1999, i.e., 3 tenths of a year. That would raise male life expectancy to above 75 years, and female life expectancy to nearly 81.5 years.
Spanish and French women live longest (82.7 years), slightly more than Swiss women (82.6 years) and a year longer than their Swedish sisters (81.7 years). Only Japanese women have a longer life expectancy (84.8 years), by an awesome two years. Female life expectancy at birth crossed the 80-year mark in the United Kingdom in 2000, leaving only Portugal, Ireland and Denmark below the barrier. In the latter country, it has risen by only 2.3 years since 1975, compared to 6.8 in Luxembourg, 6.6 years in Spain, 6.5 in Austria and 5.9 years in France.
The average life expectancy of men in the European Union as a whole is 75 years, but the level is exceeded in many countries, for example those of southern Europe (excluding Portugal), Austria, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and notably Sweden (77.4 years). Outside the Union, male expectation of life is 76.0 years in Norway, 76.9 years in Switzerland and 78.0 years in Iceland, outstripping Japan’s 77.4 years.
Excess male mortality is still decreasing across western Europe, even if the gap between female and male expectation of life grows for a time here and there, as it did for Greece in 1999 and Spain in 2000. Differences between countries remain important, and the gap may vary by a factor of two: 3.4 years in Iceland and 7.5 in France. In addition to France, in only two countries ― Spain and Portugal ― does the female expectation of life at birth exceed the male one by more than seven years; Finland drops below that number in 2000.
The health situation is far from being as favourable in central and, especially, eastern Europe as in the western part of the continent. In the year 2000, however, a certain number of countries scored points in the fight against mortality. Female expectation of life gained 8 tenths of a year in Poland (and the male one gained 1.5 years), 7 tenths of a year in Latvia, Belarus and Armenia
[19], 5 in Hungary (8 for males), Lithuania and Romania. Female life expectancy is highest in Slovenia, (79.7 years), ahead of the Czech Republic (78.4), Poland (77.9), Lithuania (77.7) and Armenia (77.6). For men, Armenia records the highest life expectancy (73.2 years) ahead of Georgia (73.0), Slovenia (72.3), Albania and the Czech Republic (71.7). Only in Moldova and Russia, for the second year running, did both male and female expectation of life at birth decline.
It is in Russia that the situation is most unfavourable, not to say degraded. After the loss of nearly 5 and 2 years in male and female life expectancies, respectively, between 1986 and 1999, it suffered a further loss of one year for men and 0.2 years for women in 2000, raising the loss on the years gained by the Gorbachev anti-alcohol campaign to nearly 6 years for men and 2 and a half years for women. In the past two years, male life expectancy has decreased by 2.3 years, a highly significant loss in peacetime that almost completely wipes out the improvements resulting since 1995 from a decrease of violent deaths and cardiovascular diseases. They appear to account for 70% of the new deterioration, with alcohol-related deaths alone rising by 44% in 1999-2000
[20]. The plight of women in Moldova is even worse than in Russia ― their life expectancy at birth is a mere 71.2 years, although men fare somewhat better comparatively at 63.9 years. After Russia, Ukraine and Belarus have the lowest male expectation of life at birth (63.0 and 63.4 years, respectively).
Excess male mortality is larger in eastern than in western Europe and, even though it is declining
[21], it often exceeds ten years in the successor states of the former USSR: 13.2 years in Russia, 11.3 in Belarus, 11.1 in Latvia and 10.8 in Estonia in 2000. It is much lower ― around 7-8 years ― in central Europe, and lower still in the Caucasus: 4.5 in Armenia and 5.7 in Azerbaijan.
Whereas infant mortality had declined in 1999 for all western European countries except the United Kingdom and France, many countries experienced a relapse in 2000, notably Denmark, Iceland, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Only the United Kingdom made significant improvements, with a decrease of 0.2‰. This year again, infant mortality is lowest in Iceland (3.0‰) and Sweden (3.4‰). In Greece, with a rate of 6.1‰, and in Ireland (6.0‰), the risk to the newborn is twice as high as in Iceland.
In central and eastern Europe, the decline of infant mortality
[22] is most striking, after the drop in survival of the newborn that was recorded last year in eastern Europe. The rate has risen sharply, however, in Hungary (from 8.4‰ to 9.3‰), as well as in Slovakia and Slovenia. The latter country remains, despite a rise from 4.5‰ to 4.9‰, the country of the region, after the Czech Republic (4.1‰) where the most newborn survive. With rates above 18‰, Romania and Moldova are the countries where the health conditions are worst for children under one year; their risk of dying before their first birthday is three times that of the country of western Europe with the least favourable conditions.
Table 1
Population, births and deaths
Table 2
Birth and death rates (per 1,000 pop.) and infant mortality rate (per 1,000 live births)
Table 3
Total fertility (mean number of live births per woman)
Table 4
Completed fertility in female birth cohorts (mean number of live births per woman)
Table 5
Mean age of childbearing in female birth cohorts
Table 6
Mean age at first birth in female birth cohorts
Table 7
Permanent infertility in female birth cohorts (proportion childless per 100 women)
Table 8
Total first marriage rate (mean number of first marriages per 1,000 persons of each sex)
