Separation and repartnering are becoming increasingly frequent in France, reflecting a change in conjugal behaviour which is also affecting fertility. While almost all children are born to couples, married or otherwise, a growing proportion are born in second unions. Among men and women born...

The countries of Africa have young populations today, but progress in life expectancy and the sharp drop in birth rates will lead to population ageing. This change will be incomparably faster than the slow ageing process observed in developed countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:...

In France in 2010, 50% of women aged 15-49 concerned by contraception used the pill. The slight fall in the proportion of pill users since the early 2000s has been offset by the growing use of new hormonal contraception methods (contraceptive implant, patch and vaginal ring), except among the...

In the mid-eighteenth century, the population of France was four times larger than that of the United Kingdom (around 25 million versus 6 million). In the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, population growth was much weaker in France than in the UK, and by 1918 the two populations were the...

The ÉPIC survey of individual and conjugal trajectories (Étude des parcours individuels et conjugaux, 2013-2014) confirms that many of the recent observed trends in conjugal behaviours are continuing, with some changes along the way. Fewer and fewer couples are opting for marriage, and age at...

Family policies are central to the well-being of individuals in Europe, but they differ substantially across countries. Drawing on the OECD Social Expenditure database (SOCX), Olivier Thévenon, Willem Adema and Nabil Ali describe the different policies in European countries to support families...

Every other year, Population and Societies publishes a special issue called The population of the world, presenting an overall picture of the situation across the globe. There are slightly more than 7 billion humans on the planet in 2013. The world population has risen seven-fold over the last...

The 1914-1918 war is remembered for the sheer scale of human losses: at least 18% of the soldiers enlisted in the French army - some 1.5 million men - died in uniform. Using datafrom the latest historical and demographic research on military and civilian losses, the author compares the carnage...

The media debate in late 2012 and early 2013 on contraceptive pills did not reduce contraceptive prevalence,but the use of oral contraception decreased, falling from 50% in 2010 to 41% in 2013. A portion of women optedfor other methods, notably IUDs (among the most educated), condoms, or...

n several countries of Eastern Europe, the sex ratio at birth is abnormally high. This is especially the case in the Southern Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) where it has sometimes exceeded 115 boys per 100 girls (a normal sex ratio is 105), and to a lesser extent in the Western...