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The Demographic Situation of Europe and the Developed Countries Overseas: An Annual Report
Volume 59 2004/2
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, Tel.: 33 0(1) 39 10 25 00, Fax: 33 0(1) 39 10 25 08,
The relative overall stability of the population of continental Europe is accounted for by population growth in western Europe alone, mainly from immigration. Central and eastern Europe and Russia have negative natural increase, with the balance of migration being positive only in Russia. This contrasts with the United States, where the natural increase rate and net migration are less unbalanced and substantially positive. Fertility trends and levels present quite contrasting pictures across the whole of the continent, with the total fertility rate ranging in 2002 from 1.10 children per woman in Ukraine to 1.97 in Ireland. Central and eastern Europe have the lowest fertility levels, and the most pronounced downward trend, notwithstanding clear recoveries in Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Armenia. There is an almost universal decrease in women’s completed fertility, which nevertheless remains close to replacement level in the United States and New Zealand. This reduction in completed fertility is accompanied by an increase in permanent infertility. The marriage rate is continuing to rise in most countries of western Europe, while in central and eastern Europe, the fall which followed the collapse of the old socialist orders now seems to have abated almost everywhere. The average duration of life continues to increase in almost all European countries. While female life expectancy at birth is among the highest in the world in some western European countries (Spain, Switzerland, France and Italy), it is still almost 2 years lower even there than that of Japanese women.
La relative stabilité d’ensemble de la population du continent européen n’est assurée que par la seule croissance de celle de l’Europe occidentale, due pour l’essentiel à l’immigration. En Europe centrale, comme en Europe orientale et en Russie, l’accroissement naturel est négatif, lesolde migratoire n’étant positif qu’en Russie. Cette situation s’oppose à celle des États-Unis, où soldes naturel et migratoire sont moins déséquilibrés et largement positifs. Tendances et niveaux de la fécondité sont assez contrastés sur l’ensemble du continent, l’indicateur s’échelonnant en 2002 de 1,10 enfant par femme en Ukraine à 1,97 en Irlande. C’est en Europe centrale et orientale, où se rencontrent les fécondités les plus faibles, que la tendance à la baisse est la plus marquée, même si l’on observe de nettes reprises en Russie, en Estonie, en Lettonie et en Arménie. On observe une décroissance quasi générale de la descendance finale des femmes, qui reste néanmoins proche du niveau de remplacement aux États-Unis et en Nouvelle-Zélande. Cette diminution de la descendance finale s’accompagne d’une augmentation de l’infécondité définitive. En Europe occidentale, la nuptialité continue de se relever dans la plupart des pays; en Europe centrale et orientale, la chute qui avait suivi l’effondrement des régimes socialistes semble aujourd’hui presque partout enrayée. La durée de vie moyenne continue à progresser dans la quasi-totalité des pays européens. Si l’espérance de vie à la naissance des femmes est dans certains pays d’Europe occidentale (Espagne, Suisse, France et Italie) parmi les plus élevées du monde, elle y reste inférieure de près de 2 ans à celle des Japonaises.
La relativa estabilidad de la población del continente europeo en su conjunto esta asegurada únicamente por el crecimiento de la población d’Europa occidental, debido esencialmente a la inmigración. Tanto en Europa central como en Europa oriental y en Rusia, el crecimiento natural es negativo, y el saldo migratorio es positivo únicamente en Rusia. Esta situación contrasta con la de los Estados Unidos, donde los saldos natural y migratorio están menos desequilibrados y son sobradamente positivos. Las tendencias y los niveles de la fecundidad ofrecen un amplio contraste en el conjunto del continente, donde el índice sintético en 2002 va de 1,10 hijos por mujer en Ucrania a 1,97 en Irlanda. Es en Europa central y oriental donde se encuentran los niveles más bajos y donde la tendencia a la baja es más pronunciada, incluso si se observan netos repuntes en Rusia, en Estonia, en Letonia y en Armenia. Se registra una disminución casi general de la descendencia final de las mujeres, que sin embargo todavía queda cercana al nivel de remplazamiento en Estados Unidos y en Nueva-Zelanda. Esta disminución de la descendencia final se acompaña de una alza de la infecundidad definitiva. En Europa occidental, la nupcialidad continua a aumentar ligeramente en la mayor parte de los países; en Europa occidental, la caída que había seguido a la desaparición de los regímenes comunistas parece hoy detenida en todas partes. La duración media de la vida continua progresando en la casi totalidad de los países europeos. La esperanza de vida femenina en ciertos países de Europa occidental (España, Suiza, Francia, Italia) es una de las más elevadas del mundo, pero es todavía inferior de dos años a la de las japonesas.
I. Population change [1]
The population of Europe (including the Caucasian successor republics of the former USSR) stood at 738.6 million on 1 January 2003 — a drop of 80,000 people in 2002. This change is the result of very diversified population trends across the continent, a rise in western Europe contrasting with a decrease in the continent’s other broad geographical regions. The European population decline would have been much more acute had the natural decrease not been offset by net immigration (Table A). Across the whole continent, a surplus of deaths over births produced a population loss of 1.1 million, which is deepening over time
[2]. The sharpest population decline is to be found in the former socialist states, mainly those resulting from the break-up of the former USSR, and especially Russia, where the births deficit is compounded by a negative balance of migration. It is worth observing, however, that the net excess of deaths over births has not worsened in recent years, with the notable exception of the central European countries. Notwithstanding the impression given by the table, western Europe, and the broader European Union, is not thriving, insofar as the natural increase is declining year over year, and is five times lower
[3] than that recorded in the United States.
Table A
Population of selected broad geographical regions
Across the continent, population trends are becoming ever more diversified (Table A). While growth rates in 2000 ranged from 3.9‰ in western Europe to – 6.6‰ in eastern Europe, the difference was from 4.3‰ to – 8.7‰ in 2002. Since 1989, in its 15-member formation, and since 1992, in its new makeup, immigration has accounted more than natural increase for population growth in the European Union. Its share of the total increase in the Union of 15 has exceeded 80% since 1999, even rising after the recent enlargement to 85% in 2002.
Continuing population growth in western Europe as a whole, notwithstanding a negative natural balance, as in Germany, Greece or Italy, is being driven by these countries’ pull for foreign populations. This contrasts with central and eastern Europe, where almost all countries have recorded population falls, apart from a handful of central European countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia-Montenegro, Slovakia) andAzerbaijan (Table 1). In all these countries which are experiencing population decline, there is a net births deficit (except for the Caucasian republics), including Slovakia, where migratory growth is just counterbalancing the surplus of deaths over births.
While the western European countries are all immigration countries to differing degrees, this is anything but the case in central Europe, and especially eastern Europe, and this is hastening the pace of population decline. In eastern Europe, only Russia and Belarus have kept positive balances of migration, but they are declining steadily. Central Europe, especially Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, still exerts attraction, but for a very particular type of immigration. Migration here is not just a matter of outflows to wealthy countries and inflows from the old Soviet bloc, but also intra-regional migratory exchanges which generally involve ethnic minorities or stem from the break-up of former federal states
[4]. Arguably, integration into the European Union by countries in the region may have changed the fundamentals of migration somewhat, but agreements limiting freedom of movement for persons have been put in place. This could produce a rise in the presence of nationals of western European countries, and an increase in the pressure on the borders of these countries, since integration should boost their economies and hence their attraction.
While the main immigration countries in western Europe are Germany and the United Kingdom, and increasingly Spain and Italy in southern Europe
[5], the highest net migration rates are observed in Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Spain, and most of all Cyprus. Outside Europe, Israel, Canada and Australia have far higher rates than the United States, which nevertheless receives most migrants after the European Union.
1. The situation in the European union
At 1 January 2003, the EU of 15 had a population of 379 million; five Member States had populations over 40 million, and six under 10 million. Enlargement will further increase the share of small-population states, since 6 of the 10 accession countries have populations under 10 million, bringing their number to 16, while only Poland has close to 40 million
[6]. The average population of the new accession states is 7.5 million people, which will bring the all-EU average down from 25 to 18 million people per country.
Its new formation with a population of 454 million will make the European Union one of the most populous integrated regional entities, behind the 535 million people in ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations, linking together Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Kampuchea, Laos and Burma), but ahead of the 429 million population of NAFTA (comprising just three countries, Canada, the United States and Mexico) and the 223 million of MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay). But it will still lag quite far behind the population powerhouses of China and India which, in addition to their 1.3 and 1.1 billion people respectively, are more closely integrated as countries on an entirely different scale to what is possible with the large economic marketplace to which the Union is currently confined.
In 2002, the population of the Union of 15 grew by 1.6 million people, or slightly less — 1.5 million — if the new members who joined in 2004 are included. Three-quarters of this increase is due to the balance of migration, which is estimated to have tripled since 1997, whereas natural increase has declined slightly since the year 2000.
Enlargement has strongly increased the wide range of situations within the Union, not just as from the entry of central European countries with declining populations, but also from that of Cyprus, with a strong rate of mainly migration-driven growth.
Of the ten new members, therefore, six recorded a population decrease in 2002 (Table B). Each of the successor states of the former USSR has a deficit of births over deaths, mostly since the beginning of the 1990s, but in Hungary since the beginning of the 1980s. Many of these countries have a long tradition of emigration, but that is now tending to change, and only Poland, Latvia and Lithuania are still registering more departures than arrivals.
Table B
Population growth factors in EU countries (2002)
Population growth in the Union mainly stems from the previous members, therefore, especially those with the biggest pull factor, whether traditional immigration countries like Germany and the United Kingdom, or new receiving countries like Italy and Spain. The latter two countries, along with France — which is characterized by a high natural increase — and the United Kingdom, account for most of the Union’s growth. Germany’s contribution declined significantly in 2002 from the sharp rise in the deficit of births over deaths. Italy and Greece also registered a surplus of deaths over births. In all, 11 of the EU’s 25 Member States are threatened by eventual population loss unless, in half of them, a positive balance of migration were to counterbalance the births deficit.
An examination of the growth rates paints a somewhat different picture. The strongest growth rates are found in Ireland and Cyprus, where they are 3 to 4 times above the EU average. They are followed by Luxembourg and Portugal, supported by some of the Union’s highest net migration rates, after Cyprus and Ireland. The highest crude rate of natural increase is in Ireland, which is double that of the next nearest country, France.
At the other end of the scale, the Baltic States registered the sharpest population declines, owing to a very marked deficit of births over deaths compounded, except in Estonia, by a net emigration rate.
2. Overview of the situation in France
France’s natural increase has been claimed by some to be exceptional, particularly as it alone accounts for close to three-quarters of the natural increase for the EU of 15. But this reasoning is subject to caution. It should be noted that the aggregate natural increases recorded in the other countries with a births surplus are of the same magnitude as France’s natural increase, which would mean also factoring in the other three quarters comprising this aggregate. Also, it is important not to overlook that the French natural increase has fallen by a third since the beginning of the 1970s, nor to underestimate the part played by mortality decline in this result, given a 15% fall in the number of births over the same period. A similar, and equally flawed, reasoning based on total population growth would lead to the conclusion that France’s contribution to EU population growth is barely higher than its demographic weight in the Union.
The “demographic winter” argued for by some authors and rejected by others often places a strain on the statistics. The question is, what exactly is the situation of French population growth ? Despite being well-placed in the fertility rankings, due to the even worse performances by our European neighbours, fertility is now below replacement level. Another worrying matter, which is not just attributable to the introduction of restrictive immigration laws, but probably also to its relatively weak economy and high unemployment, is that France has to a large extent relinquished its one-time power of attraction to Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, although it still maintains special relationships with some states, mostly from its former colonial possessions. Two clear examples of this loss of attraction are students and asylum seekers
[7]. Living conditions and the health care system are what most enable France to lead the way in achieving declining mortality rates, even if the summer 2003 heat wave was a timely reminder of weaknesses in the system, and highlighted the lack of provision and the lag we have, compared to our European neighbours, in an area fated to expand significantly: care of the elderly.
II. Births, fertility
For the whole continent, nearly 7.5 million births were registered in 2002. While this total has remained relatively stable since 1999, it is still nearly 5 million births (40%) less than 1960, 2.8 million ( – 27%) less than the average for the decade of the 1980s, and a decrease of 2.2 million ( – 23%) since 1990.
That represents a crude birth rate of 10 per 1,000 of population. It is not possible to be more specific because, as mentioned earlier, the measure of total population sizes is fairly vague and the year-on-year variations introduced by the 2000 series of censuses will make any greater precision harder to achieve until the new population estimates are published for the last intercensal period.
Behind the stagnation in continent-wide birth totals can be seen wide between-country disparities, which are even more marked in birth rates. So, the ten new countries that joined the European Union on 1 May 2004 alone recorded a fall of over 14,000 births in 2002, twice that of the previous members with a population five times higher. Over the period 19992002, the fall in total births is nearly three times higher.
In the European Union, Ireland is one of the very few countries to have a steadily rising birth total (+ 12% between 1999 and 2002). Over the same period, Sweden and Spain were in the same position, with total births up by 9% and 8%, respectively. In the rest of Europe, Russia registered the sharpest rise between 1999 and 2002 with a 15% increase, followed by Estonia (5%), the Czech Republic (4%) and Latvia (3%). Admittedly, however, the previous decline had been very pronounced. The general trend elsewhere saw the number of births decline, except for France, Italy, Macedonia, Hungary and the United States (+ 2%).
The United States consistently records a higher annual birth total than that of the former Europe of 15, despite having a quarter less population (290 million against 380). This more vigorous population growth, combined with higher net immigration, cannot but be an advantage for its future economic development, and enables it to maintain, or even increase, its supremacy in the world. In Europe, especially within the European Union, the role and importance of population growth for the future are impossible to fathom. Extremely low fertility in some Member States of the former Europe of 15, and the comparatively low European Union average, further reduced by the last enlargement, and the length of time for which these low levels have persisted, have elicited neither discussion nor action from either national governments or the European Commission, notwithstanding the likely significant short- or long-term impacts of these trends. Population features as a variable in the European debate only in the discussion on procedures for representation of the different States within the European institutions, or to point up the issues around sustainability of pension systems. The lack of a population policy to support the birth rate by improving the work-life balance in particular, thereby enabling couples to achieve their desired family sizes, is clearly a disturbing omission for the future development of the European Union. More disturbing still is the “head-in-sand” attitude it arguably reflects, which is likely to rule out any attempt to change things in the immediate future.
An analysis of crude birth rates, which are affected by variations in the age structure between countries, prompts similar observations. The birth rate ranges up to at least double in Europe (Table 2) from 8.1‰ in Ukraine to over 21‰ in Turkey, 6 points ahead of Ireland. The birth rate is higher in western than eastern Europe. Germany is the only western European country to have a birth rate lower than 9‰, which in eastern Europe is the case for Slovenia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine.
With a birth rate of 9.2‰ in 2002, the accession countries have brought that of the new Union down to 10.3‰ from 10.5‰ for the former Europe of 15. While the EU’s birth rate, more specifically that of its western part, seems relatively favourable in the larger European context, it still falls well short of that recorded in the overseas developed countries, where it is almost universally above 12‰: United States (14.4‰ in 2000), New Zealand (13.8‰) and Australia (12.8‰). But it is very close to that of Canada (10.7‰) and higher than that of Japan (9.1‰). This higher birth rate in the overseas Anglo-Saxon countries is deserving of closer investigation, for while the age structure is certainly advantageous to the new world countries, total fertility rates show that on a like-for-like age structure basis, these countries, particularly the United States and New Zealand, retain an advantage that cannot be explained by higher immigrant fertility alone.
The computation of total fertility rates that are free from the parasitic effect of age structure variations makes it possible to add detail to the observations based on the crude birth rate. For the Europe of 15, a total fertility of 1.5 children per woman was estimated in 2002 (Table C); it has therefore remained broadly unchanged since 2000 at a level not seen since 1992. By contrast, fertility in the ten new member states of the European Union has declined steadily from 1.53 to 1.24 children per woman between 1995 and 2002, a decrease which completely cancels out the recent rise in the total fertility rate of the Europe of 15. Fertility in the new members has been below that of the former Europe of 15 since 1997.
Table C
Total fertility rate in the European Union (children per woman)
A country-by-country analysis reveals that fertility is generally on the low side and more often declining than rising. In 15 of the 49 countries for which recent data are available, the last available TFR is the lowest on record; for 6 others, it is the ten-year low. What this shows is that the fertility trend may yet have further to sink in about half the countries, mostly in central and eastern Europe, but also including Japan and New Zealand, notwithstanding a slight upturn in the latter country in 2002. Some countries, by contrast, have experienced a sharp fertility rise from a low point in the 1990s. Cases in point are France, where the total fertility rate rose from 1.66 children per woman in 1993 and 1994 to 1.89 in 2001 and 2002, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden, as well as Russia, Estonia, Latvia and also Armenia, where the recovery is very recent.
In 2002, Ukraine had the lowest TFR (1.10 children per woman), followed by the Czech Republic and Slovakia with 1.17 and 1.19 children per woman, respectively. At the opposite end of the scale, Israel and Turkey with TFRs of 2.9 and 2.5 children per woman respectively are ahead of the United States (2.01), Ireland (1.97), Iceland (1.93) and France 1.89
[8]. Continental Europe now has only one country with a total fertility rate of 2 children per woman, because notwithstanding that Albania was still at 2.1 children per woman in 1999, the last year of record, sharp fertility decline suggests that it may have fallen below 2 in 2002. Iceland’s TFR, which had long remained stable, fell below 2 children per woman in 2001.
The fertility trend in the three Mediterranean countries (Spain, Greece and Italy) is disturbing. Each has a TFR close to 1.25 children per woman, i.e., barely above those of central and eastern Europe.
1. Cohort fertility
In almost all European countries, and elsewhere in the industrialized world, a decrease in completed fertility is observed among women born from the end of the 1950s, or even the end of the 1930s, since so few countries have recorded a significant rise in cohort fertility in the post-war period (Table 4). Some countries have bucked this general trend, however. In Denmark, where completed fertility rose slightly among women born at the end of the 1950s, it now seems to have levelled off at 1.92 children per woman in the 6 or 7 most recent birth cohorts for which the estimates are sufficiently robust. The situation in Luxembourg is closely comparable, although any claims for a trend rise must be nuanced by the random fluctuations due to the small population size. Be that as it may, lifetime fertility in Luxembourg has risen from 1.68 children per woman born in 1954 to 1.82 for those born in 1967 — the continent’s sharpest recent rise.
The United States also witnessed a slight rise in completed fertility from 1.98 to 2.08 children per woman between the 1953 and 1966 birth cohorts.
Apart from the countries where the onset of the fertility decline was late — Iceland, where completed fertility of the 1967 birth cohort was 2.32 children per woman, and Ireland, where that of the 1966 birth cohort was 2.14 — Norway today has the highest completed fertility, just over 2 children per woman (2.02 in the 1968 birth cohort). France and Norway are the only western European countries where completed fertility is above 2 children per woman. Elsewhere in Europe, this level is achieved only in the Balkans, by Albania (2.37 for the 1968 birth cohort), Macedonia (2.10 for the 1970 birth cohort) and Serbia-Montenegro (2.05 for the 1968 birth cohort). In Azerbaijan, lifetime fertility is still at 2.11 children per woman in the 1970 birth cohort.
At the other end of the spectrum stand a number of western, southern and eastern European countries where cohort fertility has fallen to all-time lows. In eight European countries, completed fertility among the most recent birth cohorts will not be above 1.6 children per woman. In Germany, lifetime fertility for cohort 1967 is just 1.46 children per woman; it is 1.49 in Italy for women born in 1965, 1.6 in Bulgaria for those born in 1970, 1.53 in Russia in the 1969 birth cohort. And in all these countries, as in almost all others, fertility is continuing to decline.
Notwithstanding their sharp fertility decline since the end of the 1980s, completed fertility in the European Union’s newest members remains higher than that in the former Europe of 15. In the new accession states, completed fertility falls below replacement level only among females born in the 1960s, i.e., more than ten generations behind the former Europe of 15. So, completed fertility in the new 25-member European Union is slightly higher than the previous formation. For the 1964 birth cohort, that will mean a slight rise from 1.74 to 1.77 children per woman, which still leaves a significant shortfall of three-tenths of a child per woman compared to American women, whose fertility is very close to replacement level.
Generally speaking, cohort fertility in the overseas industrialized countries is higher than in Europe. So, completed fertility in the 1965 birth cohort in the United States, Australia and New Zealand is 2.07, 2.03 and 2.25 children per woman, respectively. In Canada and Japan, however, lifetime fertility among women born in the 1960s is unlikely to be higher than in most European countries.
While lifetime fertility is falling relatively quickly almost everywhere, an analysis of the cohort trend in age of childbearing reveals transitory between-region lags in the various phases of demographic transition. So, central and especially eastern Europe are often still at the stage reached by western European countries before the first post-war cohorts: the decline of completed fertility is accompanied by an earlier mean age of childbearing (Table 5). However, there is a noTable reversal in the trend in a number of countries with women born in the latter half of the 1960s. Age of childbearing has risen sharply in Romania and Bulgaria, less so in Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia. Poland is showing the early signs of a rise in age of childbearing. This stage had already been reached by the cohorts born in the latter half of the 1950s in the successor states of former Yugoslavia, and in Hungary and the Czech Republic, but the rise is a slight one, except for Slovenia where the behaviour of couples seems to more closely mirror that of western Europe. 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 and Ukraine.
This lag in the evolutions has widened — probably temporarily — the gap in mean ages of childbearing between eastern and western Europe, and it is now about 4 years. While in western Europe it is around 28-29 years, it is still only around 24-25 years in the European countries of the former Socialist bloc.
The mean age of childbearing is still rising in all western European countries. It now exceeds 30 years in the Netherlands and Ireland. But it is tending to level off in the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden and Norway, and in the United Kingdom. The gaps may be wide between western and eastern Europe, but nor are they insignificant within western Europe: age of childbearing in Greece is 3 years earlier than in Ireland.
2. Age at first birth and permanent infertility
The information here is given 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)
[9].
Mean age at first birth and mean age of 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 of childbearing at different orders. A reduction in completed fertility tends to increase the weight of the first birth, even if the proportion of childless women grows.
Mother’s age at first birth is rising rapidly in all western European countries except Sweden and Norway, where the increase has slowed down among women born during the 1960s, mirroring, but at a slower rate, the trend towards stabilization observed for all births (Table 6). In central and eastern Europe, the lag in evolutions is reflected in only a moderate rise in age at first birth from cohorts born at the end of the 1960s. Only Slovenia bucks this trend with a rise of more than 2.5 years in age at first birth between the 1957 and 1971 cohorts. In the remainder of former Yugoslavia, growth is slow and relatively longer-standing, having begun with the postwar birth cohorts. In Russia, mean age at first birth is still falling, so that Bulgarian women, who were traditionally the youngest at their first and all subsequent births, have now been superseded by Russian women.
Central and eastern European women have their first child on average 3 to 4 years younger than their western counterparts, at around 2324 years of age. While age at first birth among the 1970 birth cohort does not exceed 24 in any of the former Socialist bloc countries, excepting the countries resulting from the former Yugoslavia, it is never below 26 in western Europe, except in Greece, 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 couples, despite the advances of medically assisted reproduction.
Permanent infertilitys
[10] has already risen to very high levels in a number of western and central European countries
[11]. At least one in five women born at the end of the 1960s will remain childless in Austria, Finland, Ireland, England and Wales, Greece and Italy (Table 7), plus Germany, at least in its western part. The same situation is occurring, but with a slight lag, in eastern Europe where it is the cohorts born at the beginning of the 1970s that will achieve such high values in most central European countries (Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Latvia). With women born in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the old Socialist bloc countries now adopting patterns of behaviour very close to those of western European women, the levels of infertility between the two parts of the continent are rapidly becoming very similar.
While the estimation procedures used may well underestimate the later recovery, the situation in these countries remains disturbing, especially with the rapid rise in infertility. In Poland, more than one in four women born in 1974 is likely to remain childless — an increase of 10 points in seven generations.
The rapid rise in infertility, especially in central Europe (Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Latvia) means that these already very high levels could well be considerably exceeded before too much longer and that central Europe, now part of the European Union, may become a deep fertility trough.
Conversely, permanent infertility could be below 10% in Portugal, but the very low values recorded for the mid-1960s cohorts in particular prompt 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 permanent infertility levels.
Note that rising infertility is not gaining ground in the Scandinavian countries where, except in Finland, it is below 15%, the same level as in the United States.
III. Marriage and divorce
While total fertility rates have evolved more or less uniformly, with indices falling or at best stabilizing, since the beginning of the 1990s, nuptiality has presented a more mixed picture which may bear witness to changing behaviours, at least in western Europe (Table 8
[12]).
The general decline in marriage rates seems to have abated more or less all across western Europe, with singular exceptions such as Belgium and Portugal where the last data year is the lowest point recorded since World War Two. The situation is relatively comparable in Austria, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, where the low point was reached in 2001.
Elsewhere, despite slight year-to-year variations, the female first marriage rate remains slightly higher than in the 1990s, at least in northern Europe and France
[13]. Even so, in a number of countries where marriage rates had begun to rise slightly, the female first marriage rate has fallen again, although not to the very low levels recorded in the 1990s. France and Italy are cases in point.
The aggregate result of these evolutions is a slight decrease in the overall rate for the European Union of 15 which, with 567 first marriages per 1,000 women, has returned to its mid-1990s level. The situation in the Union’s new members is little worse, and this, combined with their comparatively small demographic weight, will produce no material changes in the new Union of 25.
However, in the enlarged Union, the new accession states had the lowest female first marriage rates in 2002: Estonia (422‰), Slovenia (435‰) and Latvia (438‰), even if levels were little higher in the existing member states (456‰ in Belgium).
In Scandinavia, first marriages finally seem to have reached an accommodation with the new competing forms of union to judge by the significant levels to which female first marriage rates in some countries of the region have now risen. With a female first marriage rate above 700‰ since the year 2000, Denmark has returned to levels not seen since the early 1970s. Finland likewise has equalled its mid-1980s levels, and Iceland that of the end of the 1970s.
However, it is those countries where tradition — religious tradition in particular — is more deeply-rooted that have the highest marriage rates, like Macedonia, Belarus and Portugal, although in the latter country the marriage rate of Portuguese residents is overestimated by failing to clearly distinguish between newly-weds living abroad and those residing in Portugal.
Two countries stand out for the wide variations in their year-to-year marriage rates. In Greece and Cyprus, a belief in the ill-starred nature of leap year marriages results in their being brought forward or delayed. This is compounded in Cyprus by the fact that a growing number of marriages of non-resident foreigners are celebrated there, which completely distorts the measure of Cypriot nuptiality.
The steep drop in first marriage rates which followed the fall of the old Socialist order now seems to have abated more or less across central and eastern Europe, apart perhaps from Lithuania, Poland and Bulgaria. But the situation is most disturbing in the Caucasian republics (Georgia and Armenia), where the female marriage rate is barely one in three, a level never seen in western Europe, and observed in East Germany only at the height of the ferment which followed the fall of the Berlin Wall.
One limit to the current analysis of nuptiality is that marriage can no longer be regarded either as an adequate measure of union formation or the beginning of exposure to the risk of conception. It is a limit due less to the spread of modern contraception methods than to competing forms of union. Having no coherent and complete registration sets for such new types of union, either in the form of statistical registration or survey data
[14], we must look to indirect sources of information in the frequency of extra-marital births. By far most of such births are to couples, and 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.
The proportion of extra-marital births has risen everywhere (Table 9) except in Denmark where it decreased slightly in the mid-1990s, but has held remarkably steady for some years now.
That share varies very widely between regions, ranging from under 2% in Israel and Japan to over 60% in Iceland. This exceptional range evidences the varying cultural significance attached to it. In Scandinavian Europe, it was for long connected with greater sexual permissiveness, especially among adolescents, and the practice of trial marriages. Elsewhere, it evidences strict societal controls on the sexual life of unmarried persons. While the spread of modern contraception and a relative growth in permissiveness have reduced the impact of these attitudes, they are still there and, as we shall see below, this relative frequency of extra-marital births correlates closely with the general fertility level.
In most western European and Scandinavian countries, the proportion is above 40% (Scandinavian countries, France and the United Kingdom) but is levelling-off or even starting to fall, as we have just seen for Denmark. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, two Baltic States, Estonia and Latvia, are now recording a proportion of extra-marital births very close to that of the nearby Scandinavian countries, although the rate has recently slowed down. 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) and Portugal, which were among the countries with the highest frequency of extra-marital births in the 1970s, have now been joined or overtaken by many countries. For example, Austria had a barely higher proportion than Catholic Ireland in 2002. The lowest frequencies of extra-marital births in recent years have been in Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and especially in Switzerland and Greece, although they are rising sharply in the Benelux countries at least.
In central and eastern Europe, the same type of distinction recurs between countries where extra-marital births are generally tolerated and those where some social stigma still attaches to them, as is particularly the case with the Catholic countries of Poland and Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia, and the Caucasian republics, except Georgia. In eastern Europe, Bulgaria and Georgia
[15] as well as the Baltic States, have witnessed the highest rise in extra-marital births in recent times, doubling in under ten years, evidencing a steep rise in cohabitation in these countries during their transition towards a market economy.
Trends in the overseas industrialized countries have closely mirrored those of western Europe, except that the share of extra-marital births is generally somewhat higher there, except for New Zealand where the proportion is above 43%.
It is noTable that countries with a low proportion of extra-marital births also generally have a low total fertility rate. This is because the social stigma attached to purely consensual unions, particularly those with children, in these countries precludes the extra-marital birth rate from counterbalancing the effects of declining nuptiality, which ipso facto results in a reduction in the legitimate component of reproduction, and hence a general fertility decline. Germany and Switzerland are cases in point.
Marriages are less frequent and also increasingly unstable, as demonstrated by the steadily rising divorce rate
[16] throughout Europe (Table 10). The divorce rate seems to be levelling off in western and Scandinavian Europe, i.e., where the frequency of divorce had reached the highest levels. The trend is very pronounced for Iceland, France and the Netherlands, a little less so for Norway and Denmark, where the relatively short-term variations in amplitude still observed somewhat blur the overall picture. It is true to say that in this part of the continent, and insofar as period indicators are a reliable measure of cohort divorce intensity, more than one in two marriages is ended by divorce in at least four countries (Belgium, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden) and four in ten in six others.
Southern European countries are particularly differentiated from the rest of the continent by their relatively low resort to divorce, although Portugal has for some years seemed to be leaving this cultural area. In these countries, no more than one in five marriages ends in divorce. The same rift appears to recur here as for the frequency of extra-marital births — cultural divides that stem from relatively conflicting conceptions of the role of marriage and the family in the organization of society. The only notable exception lies in the fact that while Germany (mainly western Germany) and Switzerland frown on extra-marital births, they accept divorce as a relationship breakdown.
In the latter country, a new law that came into effect on 1 January 2000 had before it was passed led to a halving of the number of divorces granted between 1999 and 2000. This new 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. It 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, and in the Czech Republic in 1999
[17] after the overhaul of the family code to give increased protection to children. The relatively sharp rise in the divorce rate in Switzerland 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 2004-2005 in France, where the notion of fault as a basis for divorce is likely to be kept only for spousal violence, and the rules on divorce by consent relaxed.
In central and eastern Europe, the resort to divorce is also very uneven. The successor states of the former USSR where, apart from in the Caucasian republics, divorce has long been as frequent as in Scandinavia, contrast with central Europe and the Balkans, where rates are much lower (around 20%), except in Hungary and the Czech Republic, where levels have always been closer to those observed in western Europe.
In some countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Moldova, a transient decline in divorce at the end of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s may be partly due to a selective bias from the steep decline in marriage since the collapse of socialism.
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 like Portugal, Ireland and Poland
[18], abortion is unlawful; in others like Austria, Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg, abortion is permitted, but there is no systematic registration, such that only partial statistics or estimates are available. In Austria, for instance, the statistics only cover hospital procedures and until 1988, they included miscarriages (Table 11A). 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
[19].
The number of abortions varies widely between countries across the continent. In Russia, it is nearing 2 million after peaking at 4.5 million in the mid-1980s. Because this number varies with two parameters, namely population size and frequency of abortion in cases of unwanted pregnancy, the most appropriate measurement to use is the ratio of total abortions to total live births (Table 11B).
The recent evolution in abortion use depends to a large extent on the geographical region and hence cultural sphere to which the country belongs. There has been a slight rise in the use of abortion in western Europe, probably reflecting an increased refusal to accept contraception failures. This rise notwithstanding, however, the frequency of abortion is still below what it was fifteen or twenty years ago, which presumably reflects improved fertility control by couples. Despite some unreliability in the abortion statistics, a figure of approximately 1 to 3 abortions for 10 births can reasonably be vouchsafed for western Europe. Sweden has the highest frequency of abortion (35% of births in 2002), while Belgium and the Netherlands have the lowest, resorting to it three times less often.
In contrast, abortion fulfilled a very different purpose throughout the former eastern bloc, where it was almost the only method of birth control available. This is why the number of abortions has long exceeded and still now exceeds the number of births. Notwithstanding the advances made since transition by the central and eastern European countries, abortion is still a much-used method of birth control. The sharp fall in the number of abortions relative to births observed since the beginning of the 1990s reflects the spread of contraception in the region. The fact remains that abortion is still relatively widespread in this part of Europe, reflected in a number of abortions close to or above that of births, as in Russia (128 recorded abortions per 100 live births in 2002), Ukraine, Romania, Belarus, Estonia and Bulgaria.
V. Mortality
The crude death rate in the European Union shows slight variations over time, both in the old 15-member and new 25-member formations. In the Europe of 25, it is 9.8‰ in 2002 compared to 10‰ five years before (Table D). In absolute values, the drop is somewhat sharper in the new accession countries, where the situation is admittedly somewhat worse despite a slightly more favourable age structure. The situation is improving generally throughout western Europe, even though the gains are somewhat offset by the steadily ageing populations. Ireland records the most pronounced decline in the crude death rate, falling from 8.7‰ in 1999 to 7.5‰ in 2002. Iceland, however, remains the country with the lowest crude death rate — 6.3‰ in 2002. At the other end of the range, Denmark and Sweden are worst-off, with CDRs of 10.9‰ and 10.6‰, respectively (Table 2).
Table D
Mortality and expectation of life in the European Union
As could already be deduced from estimates of the crude death rate in the new accession countries, the health situation in central Europe, and eastern Europe even more so, is much worse than that of western Europe, although the youthful populations of some countries, like Albania and Azerbaijan, may mask real mortality levels. While the five-year crude death rate trend is downwards in most countries, it is not unusual to find a worsening situation, as in Russia, where it has risen from 13.6‰ to 16.2‰ between 1998 and 2002, in Bulgaria and Belarus, or effective long-term stagnation, as in Croatia, Hungary and Poland, where the rate was lower in 1970 than in 2002. Of course, the 1990s was a period of transition to the market economy, which in many countries was distinguished by a significant worsening of the economic situation which had serious repercussions on health and living conditions.
But for assessing mortality trends and ranking countries by 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 almost all European countries. In western Europe, only Luxembourg has registered a slight drop in male life expectancy at birth, but the number of deaths in this country is relatively low and year-on-year random fluctuations may be significant (Table 12). Likewise Iceland, where female life expectancy fell by half a year in 2002, but the annual number of female deaths is below a thousand.
More significant, but also exceptional, are the setbacks observed in eastern Europe, where they generally concern both sexes, as in Romania, where the decrease is small, Belarus and Russia, where life expectancy lost 2 tenths of a year among males and 4 tenths among females.
In the last five years, the gaps between female and male expectations of life, and between the prosperous countries of western Europe and those of central Europe with the highest gains, have narrowed slightly. But the gap with the successor states of the former USSR is continuing to widen.
Expectation of life at birth in the new European Union of 25 is 74.8 years for males and 81.1 for females in 2002. Even with the slight drop in the average following enlargement of the Union, these rates show that the health situation is better in the Union than in the United States. This is particularly remarkable in being the only population indicator in which the United States is lagging. Unfortunately, that reflects less a lead for the Union than a lag for the United States as a result of the grievous conditions in which the black population is kept.
Of all the most developed countries, Japan has made the best mortality gains. Japanese women live on average 84.9 years, i.e., nearly two years longer than women in the best-off European countries (83.1 years for Spanish women, 83.0 years for Swiss women, 82.9 years for French and Italian women), which is highly significant
[20]. One noTable aspect is the pace at which the Mediterranean countries of Spain and Italy have caught up, now ranking 2nd and 4th among developed countries, respectively. This historical trend analysis of expectation of life at birth shows how the age and cause-of-death structures of mortality play a significant role in the different countries’ rankings, and that what may seem to be an advantage at one time may turn into a disadvantage at another. This is why previously leading countries are not necessarily so now.
Male expectation of life at birth has since 1998 been higher in Iceland than in Japan, standing at 78.5 years in 2002 against 78.1 years in 2001. It is followed by Switzerland and Sweden with 77.8 and 77.7 years, respectively.
Excess male mortality is still decreasing across western Europe, even if the gap grows for a time here and there, as it did for Spain in 2002, but differences between countries remain important. The gap between female and male expectation of life varies by a factor of two: from 3.8 years in Iceland to 7.4 years in Spain and 7.3 in France, the only two western countries where the gap is now above 7 years. Portugal and Finland dropped below that number in 1998 and 1999 respectively.
The health situation is far from being as favourable in central and, especially, eastern Europe. The gender life expectancy gap is routinely above 7 years, reflecting high mortality among the male working population. The gap is widest in Russia at 13.2 years in 2002, then in the Baltic States and Belarus, where it is more than 11 years everywhere.
In central Europe, only Slovenian women enjoy conditions approaching those of women in western Europe, with a life expectancy of 80.5 years, as in the United Kingdom or Portugal. Slovenian males and both sexes in the other new accession countries have a life expectancy several years lower than that current in western Europe, except for Cyprus and Malta where conditions are substantially similar to those in Greece.
It is, however, 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 2.5 years for women. Between 1998 and 2000, 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. Belarus is in a similar plight, with life expectancy losses of 5.1 years for males and 3.1 years for females since 1985. Women in Moldova are faring even worse — their life expectancy at birth is not even 72 years, a level barely higher than Turkey.
The health situation in the non-European developed countries appears relatively favourable. Leaving aside Japan, whose remarkable performance was mentioned above, male mortality is everywhere later than in the Europe of 15, apart from in the United States. The situation is more evenly divided for females, as Israeli and New Zealand women, along with their American sisters, have a mean length of life slightly below that of European women.
The final component to account for health situations and population development is infant mortality. This highlights singular characteristics across Europe, as in the industrialized world as a whole. The range between the countries analysed here goes from 1 to 20 (Table 2). Disregarding the infant mortality rate of barely more than 2‰ in Iceland, which may reflect random fluctuations, it is only 3‰ in Finland, but approaching 40‰ in Turkey. Discounting the central Asian Muslim republics of the former USSR, the highest level is observed in Georgia (23.6‰). In Europe, Romania fares worst with an infant mortality of 17.2‰. In the new European Union of 25, infant mortality is only 4.9‰, with a range from 3‰ to 9.9‰. These bald figures show the gulf that separates the EU Member States from Turkey, where infant mortality is at levels seen in western Europe in the 1950s.
The low level of this rate and the random fluctuations that may then affect it are behind year-to-year variations that cannot be explained away in terms of a sudden worsening or improvement in perinatal conditions. The general trend is downwards, but there are no discernible changes that might suggest a slowdown in the gains made. In southern Europe, as in Slovenia, Austria and Germany, infant mortality has fallen particularly sharply to one-tenth of what it was forty years ago.
In eastern Europe, and Bulgaria, the decline in newborn survival rates
[21] produced by the conditions of the transition towards the market economy has now been completely reversed, except in Georgia. While some countries in the region like Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Estonia have already caught up with the most developed countries in western Europe, much still remains to be done if children born in this other Europe are to have the same chances of survival as elsewhere.
VI. Population ageing
The trends described above produce changes in the age structure of the European populations. Declining fertility and lengthening life expectancy, where the pace of relative advances increases with rising age, will in the long term result in more rapid population ageing, i.e., an increase in the share of older people. That ageing is already well advanced in all developed countries, especially in western Europe. Initiated by fertility decline (ageing from the bottom), it has been amplified for some time by oldest-old mortality decline (ageing from the top).
This is now a general phenomenon, but one which varies widely from country to country in its pace of diffusion. At 1 January 2003, the share of people aged 65 and over varies from one to three between Turkey and Albania (5.5% and 5.6%, respectively) and Italy, where it stands at 18.2% (Table E). The proportion of people aged 65 and over is higher in the European Union of 15 members (16.5%) than in the new accession countries (13.3%)
[22], which will initially reduce the level of ageing in the EU’s new formation. But in the long term, the low fertility of the new members means that enlargement will result in accelerated ageing of the Union. This is the conclusion of the medium-variant projections for 2050 done by the United Nations in 2002.
Table E
Share of persons aged 65 and over in the European union (%)
APPENDIX
Data collection issues
The registration of vital events is generally assumed to be complete and of high quality. Even though problems remain, for example when part of the territory is not under government control as in Georgia, and even though international recommendations are not always followed — leaving aside the recurrent problem of the observation of migration— the Achilles’ heel of the estimation of demographic indicators lies in the annual population estimates, and beyond them, in the censuses from which they are derived
[23]. Unfortunately, the critical analysis of sources seems to have become unusual and even taboo when official national data are used.
The results of the 2000-2001 wave of censuses have recently been published, and they revealed their share of surprises. This provides an opportunity to look more closely than usual at their limitations. Here we shall consider only traditional censuses and will not discuss the growing practice of reconstructing similar information by matching files or the new procedures that combine exhaustive enumeration with sampling, as is the case for the widely discussed reorganized French census.
One of the first issues is the variable quality of successive censuses. An “accounting” solution to this problem is given by the statistical adjustment of the error of closure between two population estimates for the same date derived from the preceding and the new census, respectively. When the discrepancy cannot be explained by the poor observation of vital events during the intercensal period, and stems therefore from differences in quality or completeness, the statistical adjustment consists of assigning this difference to the instant that separates hour 24 on 31 December from hour 00 on 1 January, thus introducing a discontinuity. This is common practice in France and must be used when, in the (temporary or otherwise) absence of intercensal estimates, there is a significant difference between two successive estimates for the same date, each derived from different censuses. Without such an adjustment, the computation of rates will be affected by an error reflecting the size of the discrepancy, but, more seriously, the discrepancy will end up as net migration, which is usually estimated as the residual in the standard balance equation of demography. This constitutes a new limitation of the statistics. Net migration is usually estimated before the totality of international migration has been observed, and, when the final results are available, the population totals estimated previously for the next 1 January are never corrected. It is necessary to wait for the next census and the eventual intercensal estimates. It should be noted, moreover, that intercensal adjustments are not common practice, and that some countries only adjust the total numbers, without bothering with the effects on the age and sex structure of the population.
Surprises affecting the wave of censuses concerned mainly Spain, Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom, and France. As mentioned in the last annual report
[24], the population of Spain was adjusted by 291,000 people in 2000 and by 125,000 in 1999. The gap between the expected and the enumerated populations in 2001 amounts to + 365,000 persons in Greece, – 928,000 in Italy, and – 1.1 million in the United Kingdom
[25]. In France, it amounted to –480,000 persons in 1999.
Such discrepancies raise questions about their origin. One of the most commonly used methods is to analyse the results of the post-enumeration survey that is normally conducted immediately after the census. Unfortunately, the procedure is not applied systematically, and is even uncommon in France. Since the post-enumeration check associated with the 1962 census, this was only done once, in 1990. By default, the analysis of certain results or certain population groups in successive censuses gives some idea as to the errors and completeness of census coverage.
The final, and by far the most disturbing, problem is the use made of the lessons drawn about the particular weaknesses of a census. Logically, one would expect the results of the census to be adjusted so as to compensate for the indicated defects or, at the very least, that the adjusted results will be used as the basis for the annual population estimates that statistical departments are required to compile. Unfortunately, here too the practices may differ from country to country in conformity with the traditions of their statistical departments. The adjustments are taken into account in the United Kingdom, as will be seen below, but not in France.
The 1.14 million downward adjustment in the total population size of England and Wales, estimated in mid-2001 on the basis of the new census, is attributable for 60% to an over-estimation of the adjustment required to compensate for incomplete coverage
[26] of the population enumerated in 1991, combined with a faulty estimate of international migration
[27]. To allow for a degree of under-enumeration affecting mainly young adult males, the population estimate for 2001 was revised upwards by 193,000 people. Notwithstanding these various adjustments, there remains an unexplained discrepancy of 291,000 people, which was incorporated one tenth at a time in the ten intercensal annual estimates
[28].
In France, the results of the critical analysis of the quality of a general population census are limited to that census, and never used to produce a population estimate that would be closer to reality than that yielded by the census. Because they are also not used for the new intercensal population estimates, the deviations from the numbers valid for a particular time are cumulative and produce a drift
[29]. The magnitude of that drift should be measured, and its impact on the computation of demographic indices should be assessed.
The post-enumeration check carried out after the 1990 census concluded that there had been a net omission of 1.1%, i.e. 620,000 people, resulting from the omission of 1.8% of the population and from 0.7% of double counts
[30]. These results, however, were not incorporated in the estimate of the population on 1 January 1990 derived from the census nor in the successive annual estimates. On the eve of the 1999 census, these 620,000 people were still missing from the annual estimate, because the successive estimates are established only by reference to the natural increase and the estimated migration.
For the 1999 census — the last census along traditional lines — it was decided not to conduct a post-enumeration survey. The 1999 census reported 500,000 fewer people than the population estimated on the basis of the 1990 census, which was itself affected by the previously mentioned omission of 620,000 people. This new discrepancy could only originate in the faulty estimation of the balance of migration for the period 1990-1999 (estimated at + 540,000) and/or in an undercount in the 1999 census. INSEE, the French national institute of statistics, admitted there was a “slight inconsistency” between the two censuses, and opted for a statistical adjustment by distributing the observed difference over the whole period at a rate of – 53,000 people per year
[31].
This decision is somewhat at odds with INSEE’s own published analysis
[32]: “Net omissions may have increased in 1999. The improved treatment of double counts in 1999 led to a reduction in the number of people enumerated twice, while the share of those not enumerated probably increased…” Adding the 620,000 people omitted at 1 January 1990 to the 480,000 overlooked in 1999, the real population deficit on 1 January 1999 would amount to 1.1 million people, or a net omission of 1.9%
[33]. These omissions concern mainly young adults. Assuming that females account for half of these, the female population of childbearing age (denominator of the total fertility rate), would in fact include an excess of 500,000 individuals. Since this would represent 4% of the female population aged 15-44, the total fertility rate calculated from official population figures would be over-estimated in the same proportion. The true value of the index might therefore only be 1.81 children per woman in 2002 instead of the official value of 1.89, altogether not an entirely negligible difference.
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
