In January, well-established tradition, the pollsters we bombard a battery of surveys pessimistic about the morale of the country, more than ever at half mast, it seems. The French have no confidence in the future. They think their children will live worse than they. They believe that the economy is bad, the youth unemployment haunts them, and rightly so.
However, the barometer of national mood, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) has put a positive, very positive: France - just under 65 million inhabitants - is the European champion in the birth rate. Low morale, increased libido? Everything has been excellently said by our colleague Anne Road (Le Monde, 15 January) about the reasons that can explain these figures.
With 828 000 births, France in 2010 displays an indicator of fertility of 2.01 children per woman. Poetic desire and a bit opaque formula deserves a decryption: he was born in 2010, 20,000 babies over a decade ago, with France experiencing its highest birth rate since the end of the baby boom the postwar period.
Economists and demographers like those numbers. They see it as a major asset for France - of securing funding for its welfare state to renew its population. Cautious, they do not venture to fathom the mysteries of the most private decision that is (having children or not), but some dare to make this decision: it may look like a sign of confidence in the future ...
The French birth rate is an exception on the Old Continent, which has never been so aptly named. Most European countries are experiencing a serious crisis of the birthrate. Catholic south east as the European Union, fertility indicators stagnated, and they sometimes descend below the births necessary to ensure easy maintenance of the population at its current level.
The French exception is even more remarkable if we look at the major trends in global demographics. According to UN estimates (www. one. Org / esa / population /), Europe is the norm in a world where aging candidates for senior card - 60 years and older - are an ever growing population.
That followers of the British economist Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), rest assured: the fear is about to change its nature. The Malthusian overpopulation feared that the resources of the planet can not feed; demographers fear a global population that does not include enough young to support the old.
Explanation: population growth slows. In its special edition "The World in 2011," the weekly The Economistannonce "the end of the baby-boom world." Certainly, 2011 will, probably around half of the year, "the birth of the seven billionth human being". But the figure masks the beginning of a deceleration in the pace of growth in world population.
It "took about 250,000 years to reach 1 billion people (around 1800). More than a century elapsed before it reached 2 billion (in 1927), but it does had thirty-three years to reach the next billion (1927-1960) and fourteen years only for the billion later wrote The Economist. The last two stages, rising to 5, then 6 billion have respectively took only thirteen and twelve years.
" This dynamic is reversed. By 2050-2060, world population will stabilize around 9 billion people, the result of a gradual decline in birth rates and a general increase in life expectancy. "By 2050, population momentum will slow to near zero, predicts The Economist, and the world will be on the verge of discovering for the first time in centuries, a cap of its population." "The world's graying," the title pretty American magazine Foreign Policy (November 2010).
The falling birth rate is not as industrialized countries. It is fairly general. Russia early this century has lost 7 million from its 1991 population. "Of the 59 countries where the birth rate is no longer sufficient to maintain the population, 18 are classified by the UN to" developing countries "- in other words, in the South.
Asia, touted as the paradise of tomorrow, is one of the most demographically continent not on track. Political scientist Phillip Longman wrote in Foreign Policy: "Those who we announce Asian century did not realize that this region is entering an era of accelerated aging of its population." The Japanese case is known, but we forget that the situation in South Korea and Taiwan that, for example, come close, like that of China.
With its one-child policy, an extremely low birth rate and continuing advances in public health, "China is changing rapidly," says Longman, to what demographers call a company 4-2-1, where child will have the responsibility as an adult, to take charge of his two parents and four grandparents.
The aging of the population eventually ends up weighing on economic development. China will have to invent the welfare state for tens of millions over 75 years ... It will be old before being rich, prophesy pessimists. Good example comes from the United States, where a strong birth rate and immigration dynamics provide a remarkable demographic balance.
It also comes from Scandinavia, where, as in France and Great Britain, the family policies implemented by the state have boosted fertility. In short, nothing is too long to fathom the mysteries of birth, you'd better establish nurseries and parental leave ... Email: Frachon @ bbc. fr. Alain Frachon (Chronicle "International") Article published in the edition of 28.01.11 
However, the barometer of national mood, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) has put a positive, very positive: France - just under 65 million inhabitants - is the European champion in the birth rate. Low morale, increased libido? Everything has been excellently said by our colleague Anne Road (Le Monde, 15 January) about the reasons that can explain these figures.
With 828 000 births, France in 2010 displays an indicator of fertility of 2.01 children per woman. Poetic desire and a bit opaque formula deserves a decryption: he was born in 2010, 20,000 babies over a decade ago, with France experiencing its highest birth rate since the end of the baby boom the postwar period.
Economists and demographers like those numbers. They see it as a major asset for France - of securing funding for its welfare state to renew its population. Cautious, they do not venture to fathom the mysteries of the most private decision that is (having children or not), but some dare to make this decision: it may look like a sign of confidence in the future ...
The French birth rate is an exception on the Old Continent, which has never been so aptly named. Most European countries are experiencing a serious crisis of the birthrate. Catholic south east as the European Union, fertility indicators stagnated, and they sometimes descend below the births necessary to ensure easy maintenance of the population at its current level.
The French exception is even more remarkable if we look at the major trends in global demographics. According to UN estimates (www. one. Org / esa / population /), Europe is the norm in a world where aging candidates for senior card - 60 years and older - are an ever growing population.
That followers of the British economist Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), rest assured: the fear is about to change its nature. The Malthusian overpopulation feared that the resources of the planet can not feed; demographers fear a global population that does not include enough young to support the old.
Explanation: population growth slows. In its special edition "The World in 2011," the weekly The Economistannonce "the end of the baby-boom world." Certainly, 2011 will, probably around half of the year, "the birth of the seven billionth human being". But the figure masks the beginning of a deceleration in the pace of growth in world population.
It "took about 250,000 years to reach 1 billion people (around 1800). More than a century elapsed before it reached 2 billion (in 1927), but it does had thirty-three years to reach the next billion (1927-1960) and fourteen years only for the billion later wrote The Economist. The last two stages, rising to 5, then 6 billion have respectively took only thirteen and twelve years.
" This dynamic is reversed. By 2050-2060, world population will stabilize around 9 billion people, the result of a gradual decline in birth rates and a general increase in life expectancy. "By 2050, population momentum will slow to near zero, predicts The Economist, and the world will be on the verge of discovering for the first time in centuries, a cap of its population." "The world's graying," the title pretty American magazine Foreign Policy (November 2010).
The falling birth rate is not as industrialized countries. It is fairly general. Russia early this century has lost 7 million from its 1991 population. "Of the 59 countries where the birth rate is no longer sufficient to maintain the population, 18 are classified by the UN to" developing countries "- in other words, in the South.
Asia, touted as the paradise of tomorrow, is one of the most demographically continent not on track. Political scientist Phillip Longman wrote in Foreign Policy: "Those who we announce Asian century did not realize that this region is entering an era of accelerated aging of its population." The Japanese case is known, but we forget that the situation in South Korea and Taiwan that, for example, come close, like that of China.
With its one-child policy, an extremely low birth rate and continuing advances in public health, "China is changing rapidly," says Longman, to what demographers call a company 4-2-1, where child will have the responsibility as an adult, to take charge of his two parents and four grandparents.
The aging of the population eventually ends up weighing on economic development. China will have to invent the welfare state for tens of millions over 75 years ... It will be old before being rich, prophesy pessimists. Good example comes from the United States, where a strong birth rate and immigration dynamics provide a remarkable demographic balance.
It also comes from Scandinavia, where, as in France and Great Britain, the family policies implemented by the state have boosted fertility. In short, nothing is too long to fathom the mysteries of birth, you'd better establish nurseries and parental leave ... Email: Frachon @ bbc. fr. Alain Frachon (Chronicle "International") Article published in the edition of 28.01.11
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