Despite the economic crisis, fertility in France remains high, with 1.98 children per woman on average in 2009, compared with 1.99 in 2008. Age at childbearing continues to increase, and women who gave birth in 2008 were aged 30.0 years on average, versus 29.9 in 2008. Over the last century, age...

In 2005, the population of the 25 countries of the European Union was one and a half times that of the United States: 463 million versus 296 million. But over the last twenty years, population growth in Europe has been three and a half times slower than in the United States, where sustained...

Fertility is measured by the total fertility rate. To calculate this rate, births occurring during the year are classified by the age of the mother to determine the mean number of children born to women of each age over the year. This is often expressed as a rate per 100 women of that age. These...

The population of metropolitan France (mainland and Corsica), which stood at 61.9 million on 1 January 2008, grew by 0.5% in 2007. The surplus of births over deaths accounts for four-fifths of this increase, and net migration, i.e. the difference between migrant arrivals and departures, for the...

Across the world, one newborn in twenty-two dies before his or her first birthday, and among those who survive, a further one in forty-three dies over the next four years. Altogether, almost 7% of newborns die before the age of five. The ine-qualities in child mortality between countries are...

The website of the French National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) features a set of free-access interactive population maps. Thirty demographic indicators can be visualized for all countries of the world, and users can watch moving images to see how they change over time. They can also...

Every other year, the summer issue of Population & Societies called The population of the world presents a global picture of the world population. The data shown here can be found in the World Population Data Sheet published by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB).

Two centuries ago, the German population, at around 15 million inhabitants, was just half that of France. It then increased rapidly over the next 150 years, overtaking France to reach 60 million inhabitants in 1939 (versus 41 million in France). However, projections suggest that the French...

Foreign women account for 12% of births in France, and immigrant women, including naturalized French citizens, 15%. The fertility of foreign women is higher than that of French women (3.3 children versus 1.8 in 2004), but since only a small minority of the population is concerned, the effect on...

The world population will top 7 billion this year (2011) and should reach 8 billion by around 2025. Population growth is slowing down, however: after peaking at 2% fifty years ago, annual growth has fallen by almost half (1.1% in 2011) and should continue to decrease until the population levels...