The decline in the number of births should be seen in connection with the ‘gender divergence’ between increasingly progressive young women and increasingly conservative young men, observes economist Pauline Grosjean in her column.
The number of births has continued to decline in France in 2025. The fertility rate, at 1.56 children per woman, reached its lowest level since 1918. It is true that most of France’s neighbors are faring even worse, and France still holds its – rather relative – status as a champion of birth rates. This decline is a universal and long-term phenomenon, with explanations that have shifted over time.
The initial phase, which has been the most studied, is that of the demographic transition, marked by the shift from a regime of high mortality and fertility to one of low mortality and fertility. France was already an exception, having started its demographic transition in the 18th century, before other countries. Without this early transition, some economists estimate, France’s population would today stand at 250 million.
Okay, I spent all of my late teenage years to early adulthood in France so I feel I can chime in: French people, like most Westerners I’ve met, don’t know what they should do with their lives and the burden of responsibility of having children is simply not that appealing compared to having fun, either partying and doing coke or collecting figurines and dakimakuras. Even romance and love is fucked because marriage is seen as outdated and so serious so life long monogamy, for many, is just meh or scary. People don’t date for any objective, they just get together cause they’re lonely or sexually starved. And if they do understand what they should be doing, they’ll be old and weary, and either the psychological scars will stop them from fully commiting to something or biology will have done its thing and now you’re 42 trying to have your first kid, of course it’s gonna be difficult.
Now, whilst I have my value judgement on it, I’m not making any right now, I’m just describing what I’m seeing. Hedonism, consumerism, and an ideological vacuum, means that people won’t be making big commitments like having children. Of course the Muslims will, that makes sense, no surprise over there.
PS: and no, it’s not a financial thing. The immigrants with no support or family money that goes back several generations, working shitty min wage jobs, have and want to have children. It’s an ideological difference.
PS2: oh yeah and the current wave of redpill and casual misogyny on one side and “sexual liberation” and casual pornography on the other isn’t helping either. It just makes both sexes less interested and more cautious, even when there’s always good people in the bunch. That’s gonna have to be addressed as well.
I’m not going to debate you on your moral stance, nor on your conclusions.
But your own experience is a pretty narrow sample size and your generalization is pretty substantial. I don’t think you do justice to the diversity of people out there.
My personal experience with people in France is different, for example, I won’t tell you your argument is invalid over that, but it’s a sample size as big as your own, so it should be weighed.
That’s a very polite way to engage, I appreciate it. Why do you think french people aren’t having kids, friend?
In my perspective there are two aspects: social security and secularisation.
People that are uncertain about their being able to support themselves and afford a house are less likely to procreate.
There’s less influence of the Catholic church, whose message was to procreate.
Both lead to a more solitary life style and lessen faith in the general direction of society.
Mmm, a very reasonable answer. Secularisation definitely plays a part in the larger ideological differences between this population and others. There’s certainly been a very real and drastic economic decline in France since the 70s or something, and my friends’ parents have made it very clear several times, lol. But again, the fact that immigrants, which are arguably the poorest group, are perhaps the most fertile of the bunch points toward yet another ideological/psychological difference (maybe not having as much makes them panic more than others that simply think “God will provide”? Idk) that is deeper and more impactful than financials, IMO.
Perhaps the native thinks of their own childhood as the baseline, and feels like they would be unable to provide, while the immigrant came from comparable economic conditions they have now, or even worse, so they don’t see issues with it.
There’s also the fact that the immigrant is often religious and believes he must have children.
Maybe you’re right, but that’s a mistaken view by the locals, as seen by the immigrants having kids and not just starving on the streets but surviving and even thriving, perhaps not super comfortably, but still doing so. And yes, belief, ideology, they’re at the core of this situation, I agree with you there. 👍
Over here in Estonia, we have observed that it is a financial thing. Research has shown that parental pay (the state pays X% of your previous salary for up to 475 days of being on parental leave - and as a sidenote I think the measure is wrong, because it means the rich and poor get different sums) encouraged people who already had children to have a second or third child.
But the measure had limits. It did not measurably encourage people to have their first child, and the birth rate continues to decline despite the measure.
I don’t know the details because I’m not a parent. On personal notes, if suddenly, I discovered myself in a stable relationship and a hypothetical partner asked me if I want a child, I would reply “do I look like a big wheel? I can’t afford that”.
Hypothesis: today’s young people know a bit more about finances than previous generations. They know that one should not have a child before one has stopped renting and bought a place to live in. This being impossible early on, decisions are delayed and the suitable time passes. Grandparents who could potentially help with child care start needing care themselves. Also, people increasingly live at distance from their parents, so grandparents’ chances of helping with child care are reduced even if they aren’t elderly yet.
As for relationships, research indicates that they break more often. Arguably the reason is that people don’t want to remain in a badly functioning relationship, and haven’t got the skills to keep it from breaking. (I don’t even want to get started about dating sites - it’s not profitable for dating sites if people find compatible partners. It’s their customer disappearing and stopping to pay.)
Skills could be taught in school. Dating sites could be told to redesign themselves, accounting for sociological knowledge. Social security for parents should be effective enough to support a single parent who is renting their place of living, and should last long enough for a child to reach shool age. Such a policy should have constitutional guarantees (not changeable with 1 parliament). If this was done, population decline would slow over here. Not sure about France.
Finances play a part, sure, but it cannot be the main one because, again, truly poor, barely off the boat immigrants keep the French birthrate from falling dramatically. It cannot just be that, it can be a factor but not the main one. People in Gaza have children and they’re occupied, have nothing, and are murdered on a regular basis…
And why can’t you have kids whilst renting? Like I said, most of the people I know who have kids are fully employed but make little money and are renters. And that’s okay, they have their children in a nice, safe environment and that’s what matters. “Money will come, we’ll reach some economic stability, it’ll be fine, God has our back” is what these poor immigrants are thinking, and it might be the reason for the difference in attitudes even though they’re considerably poorer and with less of a helpful network in their new countries.
Another hypothesis: people who recently immigrated more typically live in settings where an older family member can help with child care. Could it be true?
As for Gaza, it’s not suitable comparison material due to high mortality. What is being sought is a solution that works for low-mortality societies where care for the elderly is a considerable job and budget line.
I think that providing people with total economic certainty of being able to raise a child without risk of poverty, early in their life (before their parents start needing care) might hit a nail. Not sure if it’s the only nail, though.
It’s not the only nail, and how big that nail is depends a lot on your cultural background. The immigrants have basically nothing, man, they escaped their countries to rebuild because of war, famine or simply economic uncertainty, whilst the locals have or should have strong family ties and more financial ease, and these are the ones not reproducing, usually. I’d say that, for those who want kids, this is certainly an impediment, a deterrent, but for those who don’t this doesn’t matter and many simply don’t. They don’t consider it an extremely rewarding, valuable and developmentally necessary part of life, so they don’t think about it, and sometimes they do when it’s already kinda late too.
If that’s causing the declining birthrate, why is the birthrate in North Korea dropping so rapidly?
Probably other reasons related to the fact it’s a hermit kingdom isolated from the world, maybe.