Population 2024 n1

Editorial
Damien Bricard, Géraldine Duthé, Delphine Remillon

A Recent Survey on French Attitudes Towards Population Dynamics in France and Worldwide
Virginie De Luca Barrusse, Cécile Lefèvre, Jacques Véron

Top-Level Executives and Professionals: A Statistical Definition of Elite Occupations
Thomas Amossé, Milan Bouchet-Valat

Sexual Violence in the Lives of Gay and Bisexual Men: Configurations, Dissemination, and Intimate Orientations
Claire Scodellaro, Mathieu Trachman, Liam Balhan

Life on the Margins of Marriage: Extended Female Singlehood in Lomé (Togo)
Charlotte Vampo, Agnès Adjamagbo, Valérie Delaunay, Yéniban Madiega

Regional Trends in Births During the COVID-19 Crisis in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain: Exploring Associations with Economic Factors and Excess Mortality
Francesca Luppi, Bruno Arpino, Alessandro Rosina

Book reviews

• Special issue on ‘Mobility and Socialization’, 2022, Espaces et Sociétés, 184–185, pp. 9–180, by Gaspard Lion
• Combined review of: Yaëlle Amsellem-Mainguy, 2021, Les filles du coin: Vivre et grandir en milieu rural [Local Girls: Living and Growing Up in a Rural Area], Les Presses de Sciences Po, and Sophie Orange, Fanny Renard, 2022, Des femmes qui tiennent la campagne [Women Who Keep the Countryside Going], La Dispute, by Joanie Cayouette-Remblière
• Clémentine Cottineau, Julie Vallée (eds.), Les inégalités dans l’espace géographique [Inequalities in Geographical Space], 2022, ISTE Editions, by Julie Fromentin
• Camille François, De gré et de force: Comment l’État expulse les pauvres [Willingly and Not: How the State Evicts the Poor], 2023, La Découverte, by Pascale Dietrich-Ragon
• Clémence Léobal, Ville noire, pays blanc: Habiter et lutter en Guyane française [Black City, White Country: Life and Struggle in French Guiana], 2022, Presses universitaires de Lyon, by Violaine Girard
• Clément Rivière, Leurs enfants dans la ville: Enquête auprès de parents à Paris et à Milan [Their Children in the City: A Study of Parents in Paris and Milan], 2021, Presses universitaires de Lyon, by Élie Guéraut

A Recent Survey on French Attitudes Towards Population Dynamics in France and Worldwide
Virginie De Luca Barrusse, Cécile Lefèvre, Jacques Véron

In 2018, the POP-AWARE survey was administered to members of the ELIPSS panel, a representative sample of the French population. Exploring both their knowledge and opinions of demographic trends in France and worldwide, this survey pursues a two-fold objective: first, it reiterates questions posed decades earlier on the situation in France, providing scope for comparisons over time; second, it introduces new considerations by extending its range of enquiry to include global issues. Almost irrespective of the respondents’ sociodemographic profiles and political opinions, demographic questions are seen as important. Respondents also express a preference for population stability over decline, despite an increase in opinions, among young people especially, linking population dynamics with environmental problems. Awareness of population questions is high, thanks to coverage in the media and in school curricula. This is not a recent development: it has been highlighted by numerous public opinion surveys over the last six decades. It would be useful to conduct similar surveys in other countries to identify variations, across space and time, in the expression of this interest in demography.

Top-Level Executives and Professionals: A Statistical Definition of Elite Occupations
Thomas Amossé, Milan Bouchet-Valat

This article presents the theoretical framework, the construction method and the initial analyses of a new category associated with the official French socio-economic classification (Professions et catégories socioprofessionnelles [PCS 2020]), named ‘top-level executives and professionals’, which aims to identify the most top-ranking occupations in French society. This category identifies, among managers, professionals and higher-level intellectual occupations, the upper fraction of positions (salaried or otherwise) involving major responsibilities in work organizations and/or recognized high-level expertise. Identified on the basis of their title and occupational characteristics, these positions correspond to an ‘occupational elite’ (3% of the working population) that bridges the sociology of stratification and the sociology of elites. Through its inclusion in public statistical surveys, this category provides a new approach for analysing socio-economic inequalities, complementary to those based on educational level or income. As an initial illustration of its potential empirical utility, this article provides evidence of very strong intergenerational reproduction at the top of the social hierarchy.

Sexual Violence in the Lives of Gay and Bisexual Men: Configurations, Dissemination, and Intimate Orientations
Claire Scodellaro, Mathieu Trachman, Liam Balhan

Research on sexual violence against sexual minority men has largely focused on sexual abuse in childhood, overlooking violence in adulthood. Studies have taken little account of the specificities and diversity of the ways of life of these populations and the varied ways they experience violence. Using data from a sample of men identifying as gay or bisexual who responded to the INED VIRAGE-LGBT survey on gender-based violence in France conducted in 2015-2016, this article shows that there exists a diversity of situations within this population. Our analysis of all reported sexual violence both in childhood and adulthood, along with multiple dimensions of sexuality—identification, practices, and sociability—identifies five sexual configurations differentiated by the place of sexuality within them, exposure to violence, and relationships to gay sociabilities. Using this approach, we identify different ways of life among sexual minority men, and in particular a group of individuals who have experienced sexual violence throughout their lives, including at the hands of other sexual minority men, and which seem to become disseminated throughout their existence. Membership in a sexual minority and changes over time in its societal acceptance are not the only elements that allow us to grasp the logics of the sexual violence experienced by this population. Considering the gendered organization of gay male sexuality and how the lives of gay and bisexual men are inscribed within relations of class and age, an intersectional approach to this violence is also needed.

Life on the Margins of Marriage: Extended Female Singlehood in Lomé (Togo)
Charlotte Vampo, Agnès Adjamagbo, Valérie Delaunay, Yéniban Madiega

As in other African capitals, population survey data from Lomé, in Togo, are revealing an increase in extended singlehood among women. Using qualitative data collected between 2011 and 2019 in Lomé, this article explores the social situations of women who are approaching the age of 30, or over 30, and who have never been married. It shows that a certain category of women, city-dwelling and often university graduates and/or financially independent, are marrying later and later in life, aspiring to other forms of social achievement before and in addition to marriage, in a context where the compatibility of marriage and work remains challenging in various respects. Few of these women do not want to get married at all and are comfortable with that idea: most aspire to marriage or wish to marry to guarantee a form of social tranquillity. In addition to rising levels of education, it is the desire for independence—particularly financial— in a social context where the living and working conditions of men are deteriorating, that is complicating the path to marriage for women and destabilizing existing gender norms.

Regional Trends in Births During the COVID-19 Crisis in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain: Exploring Associations with Economic Factors and Excess Mortality
Francesca Luppi, Bruno Arpino, Alessandro Rosina

Early evidence shows mixed effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on births in Europe. This research note compares pre-pandemic trends in the general fertility rate (GFR) at the regional level in the four European countries with the largest populations—France, Germany, Italy, and Spain—with those observed after the onset of the pandemic. It also explores the relationship between changes in GFR during the pandemic and factors such as COVID-19-related deaths, changes in labour market characteristics, and shifts in the population at risk of poverty following the pandemic’s onset.
We collected regional data on monthly births from January 2018 to December 2021 from national statistical offices, with additional data from Eurostat. Our analysis included two sets of regressions. First, regional-level fixed effects linear regression models for monthly GFRs were run separately for each country to estimate the effects of three pandemic periods for each region. The resulting coefficients of the pandemic periods were then integrated into a weighted linear regression as the dependent variable, including regional factors such as changes in labour market characteristics, risk of poverty, and excess mortality as regressors. The results highlight within-country variations in birth rate changes following the pandemic, with a particular association between declining birth rates and increased youth unemployment.