Europe reached sustained low fertility first. Its clearest lesson is not that every country looks alike. It is that below-replacement fertility has persisted across countries that differ in language, religion, family policy, labor markets, and wealth.
Across the European Union, total fertility fell to 1.34 in 2024, the lowest value in the series available for the current bloc. About 3.55 million babies were born, down from 6.8 million in 1964. The comparison spans changes in membership and population, so it is not a pure measure of individual behavior. It does show how much the number of births has changed.
Different countries, no replacement-level case Total fertility rates in EU member states in 2022. The image predates the bloc’s 2024 record low and should be read as a map of variation, not current values. via Wikimedia Commons
Southern Europe shows the depth of that persistence. In 2024, Spain’s TFR was 1.10. Italy combined similarly low fertility with a mean age at first birth above 31. A trough can last long enough to reduce the size of the cohorts that follow.
Northern and western Europe once appeared to offer a durable higher-fertility model. France and several Nordic countries paired family benefits, childcare, and women’s employment with rates nearer replacement than southern Europe. Those arrangements still make family life easier and may keep fertility higher than it would otherwise be. Recent declines have narrowed the difference. France remained among the higher-fertility EU members in 2024 at 1.61, still well below replacement.
Central and eastern Europe add emigration to the pattern. After state socialism, births were postponed during economic upheaval, and many young adults later left some countries. Fewer children were born while part of the population most likely to form families moved elsewhere.
A population can grow while births trail deaths
The European Union has recorded more deaths than births since 2012. Its population nevertheless grew in 2023 and 2024 because net migration more than offset natural decrease. Europe contains both sides of that movement: western cities enlarged by migration and eastern or rural places losing young adults. The continental population can grow while its births still trail its deaths.
Childcare, leave, housing, and income support can improve lives and affect timing or family size at the margin. No European policy model has reliably restored replacement fertility. Europe’s distinct lesson is persistence: prosperity, social spending, and recovery from recession do not automatically end a low-fertility regime once it has become ordinary.
Citations
- Eurostat, “EU fertility rate at 1.34 live births per woman in 2024”, March 6, 2026.
- Eurostat, Demography of Europe—2026 edition, 2026.
- Eurostat, “EU population increases again in 2024”, July 11, 2024.