Recent demographic trends in France

On January 1, 2022, the population of France stood at 67.8 million, 187,000 more than on January 1, 2021. Natural increase in 2021 was 81,000—lower than net migration as estimated by INSEE. In 2021, France was one of nine EU countries (out of 27) to show a positive natural balance (births minus deaths). The country’s demographic dynamics are characterized by strong geographical diversity. 

In 2020, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 211,255 nationals required to have a residence permit to live in France entered the country, as against 257,137 in 2019, a drop of 17.8% due in large part to the difficulty if not impossibility of movement during the health crisis. The decrease in number of persons entering for occupational reasons was particularly sharp. In metropolitan France, the Île-de-France region received the largest proportion of the inflow (38.4%), while in overseas France, the island département of Mayotte absorbed 50.2% of migration inflow. 

Four different regional fertility profiles are found in France: women bearing children relatively early in their reproductive lives (with a peak between the ages of 25 and 29), who live primarily in the northern half of the country (Picardie, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Centre-Val de Loire, Bourgogne, Poitou-Charentes); women bearing children relatively late (with a peak between the ages of 30 and 34), who live primarily along France’s segment of the Atlantic Arc and in the South of France (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur [PACA], Bretagne, Aquitaine, Midi-Pyrénées, Languedoc-Roussillon); the overseas départements, where rates among women aged 20-24 are higher than elsewhere in the country; and atypical metropolitan départements (Corse, with a very low fertility rate and a plateau in childbearing at 25 to 34 years of age, and Île-de-France, with a high peak in the 30-34 age bracket). 

The figure for induced abortions in 2021 is 224,000, as against 222,300 in 2020 and the higher number of 233,300 in 2019. With the diffusion of medical abortion, the number of surgical abortions has fallen every year recently while the proportion of medical abortions, supervised primarily in private physicians’ offices, is rising (77% in 2021). While most abortions in 2021 were still performed in healthcare facilities (65%), the proportion of medication abortions taking place in physicians’ offices rose (to 35% in 2021, compared to 20% in 2015). Abortion rates vary considerably by region, with above-average rates in most Île-de-France, PACA, and Languedoc-Roussillon départements and in overseas département-regions. 

After dropping to a historic low in 2020, the number of marriages rose in 2021, though not to the 2019 level. The number of civil unions for 2021 is not yet known, but in 2020 their total number pulled ahead of marriages for the first time since the PACS (Pacte Civil de Solidarité) was instituted in France in 1999. Same-sex unions represented 2.7% of marriages in 2021, 0.3% less than in 2020; and for the second consecutive year France recorded more female than male same-sex marriages. Nuptiality rates vary distinctly from one region to another. Marriage is more frequent on the country’s Eastern flank, from Alsace to the Mediterranean, while civil unions dominate on the Atlantic coast and in the Southwest. Moreover, a geographical study of same-sex unions shows that those between men are concentrated in Île-de-France while those between women are spread across the country. 

The health crisis not only made it difficult to get married or PACSed but also to get divorced. Divorce statistics cover only legal divorces and do not include divorce by mutual consent. The number of legal divorces fell in 2020 (to 57,400), a drop of 13% from 2019. Unions are dissolved more frequently in the South and East of France, whether by divorce or PACS dissolution; the figures are considerably lower in the Northwest. 

657,000 deaths were recorded in France in 2021, 1.70% fewer than in 2020 but still 7.2% more than in 2019. Between 2020 and 2021, life expectancy rose 2.4 months for men (to 79.3 years) and 3.6 months for women (to 85.4 years), after decreasing 7 and 5 months respectively between 2019 and 2020. Estimated excess mortality is 6.3% (as against 7.5% in 2020). The year 2020 was no “ordinary” one: the COVID-19 epidemic scrambled the traditional regional mortality ranking, and the regions undergoing the highest excess mortality were not the same as in 2019, in metropolitan France at least. The Île-de-France and Southeast regions experienced high excess mortality, whereas general mortality is usually low there. Lorraine, Nord-Pas-de Calais, Basse-Normandie, and Picardie, with relatively high initial mortality levels, were also hard-hit.