Populations and Demographic Trends of European Countries, 1980-2010

Europe has the most studied and best documented population of all the world’s regions. It was on the basis of long-running observations of demographic trends and population reproduction in European countries that the concept of "demographic revolution" or "demographic transition" was first developed(Rabinowicz, 1929; Landry, 1934).(1) The wealth of data about the European population has served as a base for historical demography, particularly for studies of the secular decline in fertility and the transformation of the family (Henry, 1953; Fleury and Henry, 1956; Goubert, 1960).