The United States and Europe have long been on different population trajectories, but a recent article by Gilles Pison of France’s National Institute of Demographic Studies (Institut national d’études démographiques) in Population and Societies takes a closer look at the differences:

The population of EU-25 is one and half times that of the United States: 463 million versus 296 million. But under the medium scenario of the United Nations projections, Europe’s population may decline to 460 million by 2050, while that of the United States will reach 402 million, 100 million more than today. Beyond that date, between 2060 and 2070, the European Union, in its 2005 configuration, may even be overtaken by the United States.

 

Pison notes that the “birth rate is much lower in the European Union than in the United States (10.5 births per 1,000 inhabit¬ants versus 14.0) and population growth much slower (4.4% versus 9.5%).   He also reports that immigration currently “accounts for 40% of population growth in the U.S. and about 100% of growth in Europe.”

Pison also looks at the differences in life expectancy.

The meaningful indicator for comparison is life expectancy at birth, which measures the risk of dying at each age. In 2005, European women lived almost one and a half years longer than their American counterparts – 82.0 years versus 80.4 – and for men the figures were 75.8 years and 75.2 years respectively. Yet in 1980, the situation was the reverse. Since then, life expectancy has in¬creased much more slowly in the United States, gaining 5.2 years for men compared with 6.0 years in Europe, and just 3.0 years for women versus 5.2 years in Europe. The American slowdown is espe¬cially marked among women, and the gap with respect to countries such as France, Spain or Italy is now more than 3 years.

In looking at the failure of the U.S .to match European gains in life expectancy, Pison conjectures that the difference may be attributable to the fact that “around 16% of the American population have no health insurance,” but he also cites the rising rate of obesity in the U.S. as another potential contributor.

Pison’s article does not address the implications of Europe’s low fertility rates and concerns about a “birth dearth,” but a New York Times Magazine cover story (“Childless Europe”) this past weekend asked the question, “What happens to a continent when it stops making babies?” The article provides some interesting perspectives, but no clear answer to the question: 

Those inclined to see the glass as half-full include some people who are closest to the numbers. James W. Vaupel, founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, looking in particular at Germany’s demographic status, is downright sunny on the future. He, too, says that the shrinking and graying of European societies is inevitable, but he suggests that “on balance, the future will probably be better than the past. People will probably live longer, healthier lives. Continued economic growth, even if at a slower pace than in the past, will further raise standards of living.”

But Russo Shorto, the author of the article, also asked Carl Haub of the Population Reference Bureau for his perspective:

Haub wasn’t buying it. “Maybe tinkering with the retirement age and making other economic adjustments is good,” he said. “But you can’t go on forever with a total fertility rate of 1.2. If you compare the size of the 0-to-4 and 29-to-34 age groups in Spain and Italy right now, you see the younger is almost half the size of the older. You can’t keep going with a completely upside-down age distribution, with the pyramid standing on its point. You can’t have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home.”