2023-08-29 15:00:00
DEMOGRAPHY – Immigration will constitute in the coming years “most of the growth of the French population”according to a note of the Institut Montaigne published Monday, August 28, 2023. 10% of the country’s inhabitants are now of immigrant origin, i.e. nearly 7 million people. A “unprecedented proportion” and population growth “will continue mainly via immigration”.
If the demographic situation of the country is not worrying in the opinion of the author of this note, Bruno Tertrais, expert associated with the Institut Montaigne, France is not only experiencing an upward aging of the population, but also a stagnation of its birth rate.
According to figures from Insee (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) to which this French laboratory of ideas refers, the population amounted to 68 million inhabitants on January 1, 2023. It is, of course, a growth of 0.3% in 2022 compared to 2021 but a demographic slowdown compared to previous years (0.5% in 2018, 0.3 in 2020).
Since the mid-2000s, France, the most fertile country in Europe, has recorded more deaths (667,000 in 2022) and fewer births (723,000). The fertility rate was 1.8 children per woman last year, below 2, the “renewal threshold” under which the population decreases.
The trend should continue according to INSEE forecasts since the national population should reach the peak of approximately 69 million inhabitants in 2040, before experiencing a decline until 2070 with 68.1 million inhabitants.
10% of the French population is an immigrant
In addition to a birth rate “a bear”, the French are faced with an aging trend that continues to rise. 21.3% of the population is aged over 65 compared to 17.1% in 2012. If this aging “results in particular from the lengthening of the lifespan”, lit-on encorethe low birth rate among the French is mainly explained by the high age of first birth and the number of children per woman rather than by the low number of women of childbearing age.
Immigration should then fill this “announced demographic deficit”. “The migratory contribution is expected to be structurally the majority in the country’s demographic growth”explains Bruno Tertrais.
According to the same note, the “foreign immigrants”that is to say foreign people, born abroad and living in France without having been naturalized French, are 4.5 million and represent 64% of the total number of immigrants.
The number of those who became French by acquisition amounts to 2.5 million and represents 35% of immigration. The total proportion of (non-naturalised) foreigners on French soil has increased from 1% in 1851 to 7.7% in 2021, i.e. 5.3 million people, including the 4.5 million foreign-born immigrants plus nearly 0.8 million people born in France. “There have never been so many foreigners in France since the Second Empire”says the think-tank.
The proportion of 35% of French people per acquisition is experiencing annual growth of several tens of thousands. These are mainly immigrants of African origin who become French by naturalization or by declaration (marriages). “The symbolic threshold of 10% of immigrants among the French population has therefore now been exceeded, whereas this proportion was 3.7% a century ago, 5% at the end of the war, 7.4% in 1975 and 8 .6% in 2011”summarizes Mr. Tertrais.
French people “more and more from immigration”
In 2022, this immigration contributed three-quarters to the growth of the French population. The Institut Montaigne report and its author explain this “unprecedented proportion” by the contribution of immigrant women, whose fertility represents almost a fifth of births, at a time when the number of births to French parents or parents born in France is falling.
Immigrants and their immediate descendants then represent more than a fifth of the French population today. But “if immigration becomes the majority component, this does not mean that immigrants will outnumber natives; but these immigrants and their immediate descendants now represent a fifth of the population”says Bruno Tertrais.
The French population thus becomes “increasingly originating from recent immigration” and half of it comes from the African continent. “Since the 2000s, Europeans have no longer been the majority in the population of recent immigrants”, we learn. The phenomenon is not exclusive to France since population growth “of most other European states will now continue primarily via immigration”.
The report of think-tank also looks at the economic impact of immigration on national wealth, public accounts, employment and wages. An impact “marginal” in all these areas. “After the transitory effect, the long-term impact of migration on per capita wealth, and its evolution, is neutral”. The same applies to the public accounts because immigration, “a resource and a burden for public finances”supports a “generally low tax impact”.
The impact of immigration is “very weak” on the labor market, but Bruno Tertrais points out that immigrant populations fit in less well. “France stands out for its rather less qualified immigration, on average, than that of other industrialized countries. This contributes to raising the unemployment rate of immigrants”he explains.
Compared to people without “direct migratory ancestry”, the employment rate among immigrants is up to 10 points lower. The report specifies that other parameters must be taken into account, such as the non-equivalence of diplomas or discrimination in hiring.
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