the essential
As in France, the birth rate in Aude is declining. After a birth peak in 2009 with nearly 3,800 babies, 3,000 were born last year in the department.
If the Aude population is increasing – slightly – to reach, according to statistics from INSEE (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies), 376,028 inhabitants on January 1, it does not owe this to its birth rate. This, as on a national scale, is at half mast. In November, INSEE recorded 3,033 births in 2023. The peak birth rate (1) was reached in 2009 with 3,797 births. But 15 years ago, the number of residential deaths was already higher than the natural increase in the population.
Today the number of deaths is much higher than that of births
In the mid-to-late 1970s, the average was around 2,700 births annually. It was from the 1980s that the local birth rate passed the mark of 3,000 children per year. Forty years later, the curve has reversed slowly but surely. If this trend continues, the birth rate in Aude should return to that which we knew at the end of the 1970s. At the same time, the local population has jumped from 270,000 to 376,000 inhabitants in fifty years. A phenomenon essentially due to heliotropism since today the number of deaths is much higher than that of births. In 2023, more than 4,800 deaths were recorded by municipal civil status services. The natural balance is, in fact, negative.
-Nearly 10,000 children today live in a blended family
Following the latest INSEE publication concerning municipal populations, the data reveals that so-called “traditional” families, to use the institute's vocabulary, are in the majority. At the level of communities of municipalities (CC), it is on the CC Trape Lauragais Malepère that 65% of children live with their parents. The rate falls to 50.9% within the CC des Pyrénées aude. On average, single-parent families are most numerous in the urban areas of Narbonne (29.2%) and Carcassonne (27.2%).
Nearly 10,000 children today live in a blended family. If in absolute value, they are the most numerous in Carcassonnais and Narbonnais, in percentage, it is in the CC Piège Lauragais Malepère that we find the most blended families. They represent more than 14% of households with at least one child.
France
