Falling birth rates and historic rise in life expectancy: 2023 revealed by INSEE

This is a year of records but also, paradoxically, a return to normalcy after the dark period of the Covid years. As every year, in mid-January INSEE (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Research), a government agency created in 1946, will release the main elements of its demographic report for the year just ended. 2023 is rich in lessons.

The birth rate is falling…

According to data published every month last year by INSEE, it is a child disaster that was predictable: the birth rate fell by almost 7% (from 726,000 in 2022 to 678,000 in 2023). “This is a significant drop, but despite everything we remain at a fairly high level compared to our European neighbors,” says Laurent Toulemon, a demographer at INED (the national institute for demographic research). France is actually the most fertile country in Europe, along with the Czech Republic and Romania.

But it’s a fact: French women give birth less and later and later. Result: their fertility rate is falling again this year, it is 1.68 children per woman (in 2022 it was 1.79).

Should we see this as a consequence of the economic crisis, the increasing length of education, the environmental anxiety that is undermining the younger generation? Couples are increasingly delaying the age when they have their first child. INSEE notes that the average age of women when they give birth to their first child is now 31 (up from 29 a few years ago).

…and the mortality rate is also decreasing

“In 2023, the number of deaths is estimated at 631,000, 44,000 fewer than in 2022 (-6.5%),” INSEE reports. The institute explains this by saying that 2022 marked “a resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic with the Omicron variant, as well as three heat waves and a winter flu epidemic.”

This did not happen in 2023. Demographer Gilles Pison explains: “In 2023 there were no very high mortality rates associated with Covid, the flu epidemic or heat waves.” “We are therefore returning to mortality risks that are at pre-Covid levels,” comments Sylvie Le Minez, head of demographic and social research at INSEE.

The life expectancy of men has reached 80 years, this is a record!

This is a historical record for both men and women. For the first time, life expectancy at birth for men has reached 80 years (+0.7 years compared to 2022)! In women, growth also continues, but less noticeably: it is 85.7 years (compared to 85.6 in 2019). That remains a record after the dark years of the health crisis when life expectancy rates plummeted.

“Today, men tend to pay more attention to their health, drinking and smoking less,” comments Gilles Pison, INED demographer and editor-in-chief of the magazine. Population and societies from the year 2000.

In women, the rate is now progressing more slowly. “We are catching up on bad years, but women’s life expectancy continues to stagnate,” explains Eric Le Bourg, a CNRS researcher and specialist on aging. The fact remains that the period of the health crisis is behind us. “2023 is a normal year! » Laurent Toulemon launches. Progress in the fight against death continues, and this is good news.

The phenomenon of “queuing” at weddings

We know that due to Covid many weddings have been canceled or postponed. Thus, in 2023, the French still “caught up” on weddings that did not take place in 2020 and 2021 due to health restrictions. The number of trade unions in 2023 will remain at a relatively high level (242,000) compared to the previous year. Many couples still had to wait until 2022, for example due to a shortage of rooms.

“We are therefore witnessing the phenomenon of queues,” deciphers demographer Laurent Toulemon, adding a nuance: “However, it is possible that the number of marriages will continue to decline in the coming years.” Before the Covid crisis, year after year, there were fewer and fewer French people “saying yes”. For its part, PACS is “reaching its highest level since its creation in 1999,” Sylvie Le Minez told INSEE.