Europe entered sustained low fertility before most of the world. That long experience can make the region appear to be a single case. It is better understood as several overlapping ones.
Across the European Union, total fertility fell to 1.34 in 2024, the lowest recorded for the bloc. The number of births was about 3.55 million, little more than half the 6.8 million registered in 1964. Those figures reflect both fewer births per woman and a smaller population of women at many childbearing ages.
Southern Europe sits near the low end. Italy and Spain combine late family formation with difficult transitions into secure work and housing, strong expectations about intensive parenting, and limited room to reconcile employment with family life. The result has persisted through changing governments and numerous family-policy initiatives.
Northern and western Europe once seemed more resilient. France and the Nordic countries paired relatively broad family supports with fertility closer to replacement than their southern neighbors. Recent declines have weakened that contrast. Institutions still matter, but no European welfare model has proved immune.
Central and eastern Europe followed another route. The end of state socialism brought economic disruption, migration, and rapid postponement of births. Some countries later recovered part of the decline; others lost large shares of younger adults to emigration. Hungary’s family policy has attracted attention, but annual movements do not yet establish a return to replacement.
Fertility and population are not the same map
Migration separates national fertility from national growth. Germany and several western European countries have sustained or increased population through immigration despite low fertility. Parts of eastern and southern Europe face both low fertility and net emigration, making contraction faster. Ukraine’s war adds mortality and displacement that cannot be interpreted as an ordinary fertility trend.
Europe therefore offers no single forecast. Some countries will age while remaining roughly stable through immigration. Others are likely to become smaller. Within each, large cities may grow while rural districts empty. What Europe demonstrates most clearly is the persistence of below-replacement fertility: once established, it can survive economic cycles, policy changes, and substantial differences in welfare provision.
Citations
- Eurostat, “Fertility statistics”, 2026.
- Eurostat, Demography of Europe—2026 edition.