More deaths than births in Europe: the data of 2017 by country

Italy and Germany are the two European countries that lost more population naturally (births less deaths) during the year 2017. In Italy, during the past year 458,200 children were born and 639,100 people died, which gives a negative difference of 190,900 people. In the case of Germany, the drop was 148,000 people: 785,000 births compared to 933,000 deaths.

Spain occupies the eighth position in this ranking of natural variation of the population (in absolute figures) among the countries in which there was a decrease in the number of inhabitants. In 2017 a total of 390,000 boys and girls were born in Spain, while the number of deaths was 421,300. Thus, the resulting negative figure was 31,200 people.

In the European Union as a whole, the natural balance was also negative: there were 5,058,600 births compared to 5,262,700 deaths, which shows a negative total of 204,200 people.

The countries that experienced the greatest natural growth of their population were Turkey, with an increase of 865,300 people, France (164,600) and the United Kingdom (147,900).

If we analyze the relative data, the countries in which the proportion of births to deaths was more negative were Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and Latvia. In Bulgaria, for every thousand inhabitants, the population was reduced naturally by 6.5 people during 2017. In Serbia, the drop was 5.5 people per thousand inhabitants, while in Croatia and Latvia it was 4.1 people less per thousand inhabitants.In the case of Spain, the reduction was 0.7 people per thousand inhabitants, while the average in the European Union as a whole was also negative (-0.4 people).

The largest relative increases occurred in Turkey, where for every thousand inhabitants there were 10.8 births more than deaths, Ireland (6.6) and Iceland (5.3).

These data, which were recently offered by Eurostat, refer to the natural variation of the population (births minus deaths), without taking into account the increase or reduction due to the arrival or departure of the migrant population.

The total figures on the European population were analyzed in a recent PostData of The New Barcelona Post, which offered a ranking of European countries according to their total population.