Falling birth rates across Europe

A chara, – June Shannon wrote about our falling birth rates (“Having children is expensive. Having them in Ireland is incredibly expensive”, Opinion & Analysis, July 22nd).

Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union. Their 2024 report on the demography of Europe tells us: “The EU’s natural population change (difference between live births and deaths) has been negative already since 2012. This is in large part due to the ageing population described earlier in this publication, as well as to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-2022. In 2002, the crude rate of natural population change was plus 0.2 per 1,000 persons and remained positive until 2011. The rate turned negative in 2012 and has continuously decreased since 2016 to reach minus 1.1 in 2019, minus 2.5 in 2020, minus 2.7 in 2021, and minus 2.9 in 2022.”

In 2021, the number of deaths continued to rise, reaching around 5.3 million in EU 27 (the 27-member EU), and once again exceeded births, which came to around 4.1 million. This is a population reduction of around 1.2 million people.

Inward and outward migration also affect total population. In 2020-2021, for the first time, the population of Europe fell, meaning that net migration did not compensate for negative natural increase.