As every year, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies is publishing its 2022 demographic report on Tuesday, January 18, based on figures for 2021, a year still strongly marked by the health crisis.
Like 2020, the year 2021 remains very marked by the Covid-19 pandemic with 657,000 deaths. ” Admittedly, this is 12,000 fewer than in 2020, but it is still 44,000 more deaths than in 2019. We also observe in the Antilles and Guyana marked by this fourth wave of Covid-19 and at the end of the year, particularly in December, deaths in 2021 sharply accelerating says Sylvie Le Minez, head of the demographic and social studies unit at INSEE.
Another observation: couples who had postponed their desire to have a child during confinement are starting to make babies again. Some 738,000 babies are indeed born in 2021.” This is slightly more than in 2020, +3000. And we did not expect this level of births. Because there had been fewer conceptions, postponements of parenting projects by couples during the first confinement of the population in the spring of 2020 “, nuances Sylvie Le Minez.
As for marriages, after a historic drop in celebrations, INSEE speaks of a rebound: 220,000 marriages were celebrated in 2021, after a historic drop in 2020 (155,000 marriages celebrated in France in 2020) due to the health context.
Another figure on the rise: with 67.8 million inhabitants, the French population increased by 0.3%.
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