this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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The decline in the number of births should be seen in connection with the 'gender divergence' between increasingly progressive young women and increasingly conservative young men, observes economist Pauline Grosjean in her column.

The number of births has continued to decline in France in 2025. The fertility rate, at 1.56 children per woman, reached its lowest level since 1918. It is true that most of France's neighbors are faring even worse, and France still holds its – rather relative – status as a champion of birth rates. This decline is a universal and long-term phenomenon, with explanations that have shifted over time.

The initial phase, which has been the most studied, is that of the demographic transition, marked by the shift from a regime of high mortality and fertility to one of low mortality and fertility. France was already an exception, having started its demographic transition in the 18th century, before other countries. Without this early transition, some economists estimate, France's population would today stand at 250 million.

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[–] Prancingpotato@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Something to keep in mind while talking about birth rate in France, is that we have a retirement system that is centered around growth. We do not have individual retirement plans, we pay each month for the currently retired people, and the workers will pay for ours when we retire. This creates a problem when the population of retired ppl is in augmentation and the active population ( working and paying taxes) is declining.

For a long time there was way more active pop than retired so we have a safety net, but it will slowly erode. And currently the political "solution" being pushed is not growing the active population (immigration for instance), but shifting the system towards a capitalisation (ie. Simililar to 401k)

[–] Mavytan@feddit.nl 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

The logical thing to do is to raise the retirement age, especially eith increasing life expectancy. But even suggesting something like this has half of France up in arms...

[–] Xenny@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Maybe the logical thing to do wouldn't be to bake fucking pyramid schemes into your society. I'm looking at you social security