Animation - Population projections for Germany and France

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Updated: April 23, 2002

Data: Demography

France: Population Estimates and Projections, 1950-2050 (See also: Table)

Source:

The historical estimates and the data for the base year (1995) were taken from: United Nations (2001): World Population Prospects. The 2000 Revision. New York (UN Population Division);
The projections were calculated by the author, using the DemoTools software package.

Method:

This is a cohort-component projection, using UN base data for 1995 and age-specific fertility, mortality and migration estimates for the projection period (2000-2050) that are identical to the UN medium variant assumptions. (For details see: United Nations, 2001).
Please note that these medium variant scenarios assume a slight fertility increase during the next few decades! For France we project a TFR increase from 1.73 to 1.90. However, also note that we do not assume a fertility increase to the reproductive level of about 2.1.

Hint:

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Contrary to widespread belief Europe's drastic fertility decline is not inevitable. There are a few European countries which have significantly higher birth rates than the rest. One of them is France. According to the most recent estimate by the Council of Europe, France had a Net Reproduction Rate of 0.86 in 1999. This is some 20% points higher than, for instance, in Germany, where the Net Reproduction Rate in 1999 was 0.66. In other words, due to its reproductive behavior the population of France is shrinking by "only" 14% between generations, whereas the population of Germany declines by 34%.
Please note that this natural population decline in both countries is currently not obvious, because it is compensated by net-immigration and a temporarily higher number of births due to age structure effects. There is still a relatively large number of parents from the "baby boom" generation, who temporarily produce a somewhat larger number of births - despite the fact that each of them has only 1.89 children (in France) and 1.36 children (in Germany), which is far below the reproductive level of about 2.1 children per woman

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