With France reaching an all-time low in terms of fertility in 2024, does it still hold a special place in European demographics? With a total fertility rate (TFR) now standing at 1.62 children per woman, according to data from the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) published on Tuesday, January 14, France remains in first place among European countries with the highest fertility rates, with the European Union average standing at 1.4 children per woman in 2022. It was only overtaken once by Bulgaria in 2023.

The total fertility rate is particularly important for understanding demographic dynamics. As the number of women of childbearing age has fluctuated little in recent years, it is the decline in fertility that explains the drop in births in France (2.2% fewer than in 2023). The TFR is a theoretical construct, since it is the sum of the average number of children per woman at each age of fertile life, in other words between 15 and 50, in a given year. In concrete terms, this means that if girls turning 15 in 2024 in France were to adopt the same fertility behaviors over the course of their lives as women observed that year, they would each have an average of 1.62 children.

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