At the start of 2026, INSEE published an estimate that the entire press took up: France experienced, in 2025, 645,000 births for 651,000 deaths. This situation is not a surprise, but reveals a dynamic that has been underway for more than a decade.
For a long time, France was an exception in Europe. For example, Germany has experienced a natural deficit since 1970 and Italy since 1990. With 1.56 children per woman in 2025, France remains more fertile than the European Union average (1.38 children per woman in 2023). But this level is the lowest experienced by the country since the First World War.
A structural change in demographic dynamics
These measurements are given by the total fertility indicator (TCI) which estimates the number of children that women would have, on average, if they had, during their fertile lives, the fertility rates by age measured in a given year (for example, we add the fertility of women in each age group, from 15 to 49 years old, in 2025 to obtain a total total fertility rate in 2025).
This indicator has the advantage of being able to be calculated in real time. The disadvantage is that it does not take into account the fertility calendar. If a generation of women has children later, there will be a drop in the TFR, while their completed fertility will not necessarily decrease.
Final fertility (FD) is an observation: we look at the end of their fertile life, how many children a generation of women actually had. It is therefore a real measurement, not affected by the fertility calendar, but we must wait until a generation of women has reached 50 years of age to calculate it.
The total fertility indicator is therefore subject to greater annual variations than final fertility. Thus, the TFR has varied since 1980, when it was 1.94 children per woman. We observed a decreasing phase until 1995 with a minimum of 1.73, then an increase until 2010 when we reached 2.03. From 2014, a very rapid decline begins, reaching 1.56 in 2025.
Completed fertility was relatively stable: it varied between 2 and 2.1 children per woman for the 1960, 1970 or 1980 generations. It is too early to be able to calculate the FD for the 1990 generation, but it will probably be lower.
Children later and later
French women are having their children later and later. This development began towards the end of the 1960s. The average age of mothers at motherhood fell further to 29.6 years in 2005, then to 31.2 years in 2025.
The fact of having children later and later, linked to the decline in women’s fertility after the age of 30, also affects final fertility. Thus, 87% of women from the 1930 generation (baby boom mothers) had at least one child. This figure drops to 80% for the 1970 generation and it approaches 75% for those of 1980.
A new geography of fertility
Throughout the 20the century, the determinants of fertility were social and were represented by a U-shaped curve. The most fertile French women were those from the wealthiest and most modest socio-professional categories. The least fertile French women come from the middle social classes (employed and intermediate professions).
A “fertile crescent” in the north was characterized by historically higher fertility than that of the South, still perceptible in 2010. This singularity was due to the social and cultural structure of the population: mainly from the popular and working classes, more strongly marked by Catholicism and traditional values, in a northern area which was then very industrialized.
But over the last fifteen years, the fertile crescent has tended to disappear, with a decline in fertility across the entire territory. Only pockets of higher relative fertility persist, on the one hand, in the east of Brittany and in the Pays de la Loire, where more traditional family norms persist, and, on the other hand, in the periphery of Ile-de-France and the Rhône valley, areas marked by a stronger presence of the working classes.
Certain regions of traditionally high fertility, such as Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Lorraine, have seen a marked decline in large families and now have fertility comparable to the national average. This could be explained by a decline in traditional family values, but above all by industrial decline and economic uncertainty (unemployment, precariousness), which are documented factors in reducing fertility over the last fifteen years (in France and elsewhere in Europe).
Finally, the aging of mothers in maternity wards is widespread, even if it is more marked in the south of France and the main cities.
The desire to have children is declining
The desire to have a child refers to two distinct notions. The desired number of children is the answer to the question of how many children people want to have. Traditionally, women express a slightly greater desire for children than men. The realized desire for children is complementary (this concerns final progeny).
Comparing them, the desired number of children is always greater than the realized desire for children, because some women have fewer children than desired for various reasons: infertility, marital breakdown, economic difficulties. These constraints (economic, social, biological) limit the capacity of individuals to realize their reproductive intentions and contribute to the reduction of fertility.
The desire to have a child has changed dimensions. Today, stable couples generally want to have one or two children. Twenty-five years ago, it was more like two or three. The refusal to have children has increased, but it is still marginal, going from 5 to 12%.
Some hypotheses
This decline in the desire for children is new in France and we can put forward some hypotheses, jointly affecting the desire for children and its realization, in addition to demographic factors.
First of all, if the rise in the level of education and the rise in female professional activity strongly contributed to the decline in fertility at the end of the 20th centurye century, this effect today seems largely exhausted. The massification of higher education and the lasting anchoring of women’s work now constitute a stabilized framework, which no longer allows, on its own, to account for the recent decline in fertility.
Fear of the future seems to be the primary reason. The difficult economic context is associated with a drop in fertility, as studies in Europe have shown, for example with the 2008 crisis. In all surveys, young adults express their anxieties in the face of climate change, the geopolitical context, and economic and social uncertainty. The climate crisis probably plays a role, but at the margins. Moreover, the refusal of children is still very much in the minority. In detail, it is rather a behavior of young people from big cities, with higher education, for whom not having children would be an “ecological” gesture.
If the evolution of representations of the family and normative changes contribute to this movement of reduced fertility among young women, we can also see increased difficulties in finding a balance between family and work, in a context of job insecurity. Indeed, employment and its terms probably play a role. If unemployment has fallen in France over the past ten years, the nature of jobs has changed. The first stable job often comes after several precarious contracts, therefore later.
Housing also plays a role. France does not offer enough housing in relation to the growth in the number of households. This leads to a sharp increase in rental and purchase prices, as well as a shortage of available housing, particularly in large cities. Many young professionals still live in the parental household or in shared accommodation.
What future for fertility in France?
These factors could increase the gap between the ideal and actual number of children. We can think that the risks mentioned are now perceived as long-term constraints for the younger generations. Once internalized, they are now strong enough to change the norms and representations of the family, which influence the desire to have a child itself.
France is probably at a demographic turning point, which began around ten years ago: natural increase has become a deficit. The declining desire for children among younger generations clearly tells us that this is likely to be a lasting trend.
Until the end of the decade, we can expect a total fertility indicator probably below 1.7. However, it should not drop below 1.3, as the desire for children is still present. This means that the natural deficit will probably set in over time. In this sense, France has become a European country like any other since this is the case in almost all of the countries of the European Union.
