This study focuses on a slice of the world, Europe, and explores the demographic trends in the European region, taking stock of the most important changes since 2010. The key element of our analysis is fertility, thus we address this component in the greatest depth before analysing the other two factors of population trends: mortality and migration.
In just over a decade since the turn of the millennium, the Earth’s population has grown by one billion and the upward trend has continued ever since. As a result, in November 2022, the world’s population exceeded eight billion and is projected to reach 10.4 billion by the mid-2080s (UN, 2024). A total of 59.2% of the world’s population lives in Asia, 18.1% in Africa, 9.3% in Europe, 8.1% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 4.7% in North America, and 0.6% in Oceania (Dyvik, 2024). The two most populous countries in the world are China and India, each with populations of over 1 billion people; while India’s population continues to grow, China’s population seems to have peaked in 2022 and has been declining since (UN, 2024). Despite global growth, there are quite large differences in trends around the world, which have different impacts on the social, political and economic structure of countries.
In 2023, Europe was in a year of “recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic as life expectancy at birth and population began to rise again after two years (Eurostat, 2024). However, the pandemic has widened disparities in many respects. Even taking all demographic factors into account, the situation varies widely between countries due to differences in childbearing, mortality and the rate and nature of migration.