“The number of births in France fell to its lowest level in almost 30 years in October, accentuating a downward trend in one of Europe’s most fertile countries.”
The announcement of Bloomberg, which uses data revealed by INSEE on 1is December leaves no room for doubt: France is about to fall off its pedestal in terms of birth rate.
The birth curve is in fact experiencing a serious collapse, the American media insist: “1,940 births in one month, a 10% drop from the previous year”.
A decline that began in 2010
While this double-digit drop is partly due to an increase in the number of births after the first birth in 2020, it still reveals a real trend. Compared to the October 2020 data (the number of births was not yet affected by the Covid-19 pandemic that started in Europe seven months earlier), France recorded 6% fewer births in October 2022.
Leading the ranking of European countries with the highest number of births per inhabitant, with the exception of France, together with Ireland, while the average birth rate in OECD countries is declining.
With a birth rate of 1.8 children per woman, France is still far ahead of its European neighbors (1.5 children per woman on average), but “according to the latest data, it may have lost ground in this sector, even during the Covid-19 crisis”. The decline that began in 2010 has only continued at the pace of the pandemic.
