The social model challenged by the decline in the birth rate

LFrance has in turn entered a demographic winter. For decades, the country was an exception in a developed world that was having fewer and fewer babies. The annual demographic report from INSEE presented on Tuesday January 14 confirms that this is no longer the case. Year after year, France is returning to normal, with a regular decline in the fertility rate. This is no longer capable of ensuring the renewal of generations, and accentuates the distortion of our age pyramid with increasingly marked aging.

The fall in births began in 2011. In fifteen years, the number of newborns has fallen by more than 21%, to 663,000 in 2024. To return to such a level, we have to go back to 1945. The reason is to the decline in the fertility rate, which fell to 1.62 children per woman. Unheard of since the end of the First World War.

Even if France remains the country with the highest fertility within the European Union, even if the French population continues to increase thanks to a lower number of deaths than births, the situation should raise alarm, because a demographic declining and aging – life expectancy has increased by another year since 2010 – threatens the socio-economic stability of the country.

A vicious circle is at work: the decline in the number of active workers means that the efforts they make to finance social protection (pensions and health) are increasingly important. This growing pressure discourages having children, further aggravating aging. This reduces risk-taking; the pace of growth and productivity slows, and financing the social model becomes unsustainable.

A year ago, Emmanuel Macron called for a “demographic rearmament”. This involved deploying a “big plan against infertility” and establish a “birth leave”. The dissolution of the National Assembly on June 9, 2024 left this presidential project fallow, poorly named, insufficiently resourced and above all targeted on measures too limited to bring about the hoped-for jump.

Reviving the birth rate is a complex mechanism. Autocratic (China or Russia), illiberal (Hungary) or democratic (Japan, Italy or Germany) regimes have all failed. No matter how much we raise awareness, encourage or coerce, the desire to have a child remains an eminently individual decision, which above all needs a conducive environment to come to fruition.

Allowances and exemptions are necessary, but not sufficient. The correlation between public money and birth rate is not mechanical. Migration flows are useful for filling labor shortages but politically sensitive; they only imperfectly rebalance the structure of the age pyramid.

The decline in the birth rate has multifactorial causes that must be taken into account in a global and coherent manner. Starting a family requires being able to access suitable housing, where there is work, having childcare available to reconcile professional activity and parenthood, and finally, having sufficient purchasing power. , while in France work pays less and less well.

As long as these obstacles are not overcome, it is illusory to hope to revive the birth rate. This requires rebalancing public policies towards working people and young people, thanks to an overhaul of the taxation and financing of our social model.