Demography of France

Demography of France.

History of French and Parisian demography.

Let's see, at first, some history about France demography:

In 758 AC Pepin the Short made the first census at this territory. The next one who did so was Charlemagne, who counted 15,000,000 millions of persons in his empire (North Italy and Germany). In the IX century some census were done to servants. In 800 AC, France had about 8,8 millions of inhabitants, a figure which decreased in 900 AC (5 millions) due to the constants wars and invasions. En 1328 the population was estimated of 13-16 millions, but it decreased due to the black Death. Two years after that it was about 12-20 millions. In 1600 20 millions were counted. Sun King's kingdom was the fourth more populated kingdom in the world with 22,000,000 people.

Nowadays, Paris is the center of cosmopolitan area with 11.836.970 inhabitants in the area and 2,125,246 in the city. This quantity is, as we can see in the board shown, lower than the one of 1921. If we look at the board shown, we'll also see that between 1954 and 1982 Paris lost 1 millions of inhabitants. Why? Can we ask. That doesn't make sense if we remember that between 1960 and 1980 thousands of pro-french Argelians came to France. The reasons have already been explained. Those Argelians came firstly to Paris, but France government put them on Banlieues, which don't really belong to Paris government. It's also one of the most densitive areas in the world with the 24,448 per km², a figure that can be compared with some Asian megalopolis.

Paris, as it has already been said, it's a part of the region known as L'île de France. While Paris has an area of 2.732 km², L'île de France has an area of 14.518 km². This one is divided into 3 areas. We already know the first one, it's Paris. The second one is the Inner ring, whose area is about 647 km². The third and last one is the Outer ring, which counts with an area of 11.250 km². Its fertility rate is 1.98 children per woman; men life expectancy is 77.5 years. and women´s one is 88.4 years. The death rate is 8.55 deaths per 1000 inhabitants, and the birth rate is 12.91 births per 1000 inhabitants. The Infant death rate is 3.41 deaths per 1000 alive. Paris is because of its past and the past of France a multicultural metropolis. It's forbidden to ask about ethnicity or religion and it's pursued by the law. In fact, the 19.2% (1999's study) of the Parisian population wasn't born in the Metropolitan France, the name which is given to La Métropole, as France was called when it had many territories out there. The main reason of this enormous amount are the waves of inmigration which Paris has suffered. The first of them started in 1820 when some German peasants came to Paris due to the crisis in their land. Later, Italians and European Jews joined Paris population. Lots of Russians escaped from Russia when Russian Civil War was in its most critical point (1917) and swelled even more Parisian population. Last wave hasn't got a specific date, but it started when lots of Spaniards, African pro-french people, Italians... and a lot more of people came there. Today, Paris is one European cities with more inmigrant people. As a last date, the 46% is under 35 years old, while the national average is of 41%.

French demography.

France shares its birth rate, death rate, child death rate, fertility rate figures with Paris. Its women life expectancy is 83.2 years, a figure which gets increased by 2 months a year. Men life expectancy is 76.1 with an annual increase of 3 months.

As lots of European countries, France suffered something called the "Baby Boom". As we can see on the pyramid, it started on 1948 after the 2nd World War and finished in 1973. It was caused by the confidence which the end of the 2nd World War brought European people. If we look at years 1939 to 1945 we can see a fall in the number of people alive. It can be caused by two reasons. The first of them is the most obvious one, and it's about the age that belongs to this space of time. The second reason is that nearly all men went to the war and birth reate decreased a lot. We can see the same effect on areas 1914 to 1918, but this time the first reason (death by old age) is a lot more important.

Its population density is about 116 inhabitants per square kilometre (1/09/2011 study) and it's estimated population for 2012 by the ONU population for 2012 is about 63,292,000 inhabitants, while other organizations believe that it will be about 63,500,000 inhabitants.

This figures show a low decrease of the population, due for some people to the increase of the quality of life and, for others, to the increase of the emigration.

Inmigration phenomena can be shown with a clear information that a French demography announced in 1999. About 14.000.000 people, the fourth part of french population in that time, have at least a foreign father/mother/grandfather/grandmother. Net migration(difference between inmigration and emigration) where calculated in 2007 of 71,000 persons a year. However, this huge inmigration tax isn't more than the 1/4 of the real grow in the French nation.

Inmigrant people have, generally, lower possibilities at the hour of the education. About incomes, they've got an average of the third part of the national income average although they get the same education.

From 2004, the census method has changed. Now, annual surveys are done and exhaustive polls are done every 5 years. This is due to the profit of administrations which can regulate employment and organisms related with the comfort in a better way.

About the 16.2% is above 65 years old, and young people under 20 years are only the 25% of the national population.

Marriage average decreases continuously. In 2007 only 266,500 marriages were celebrated, and in 2006 the average age was of 29'3 years in the case of women and 31'3 in men. Some years ago, Civil Solidarity Pacts are being celebrated. They're another way of getting married were homosexual couples can participate.