Replacement fertility with immigration in Europe

Description

Recent decreases in fertility rates in European countries have fueled gloom and doom about the prospect of shrinking populations. As Nick Parr shows, the levels of fertility that would sustain population size differ widely across European countries with differing levels of net migration. For some of these countries the birth rate needed is far below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.

Subject

The total fertility rate (TFR) is below the 2.1 “replacement level” in every European country, after a sustained fall in two-thirds of them between 2009 and 2018 (Eurostat 2021), and it is common to see commentary on population trends along the lines of “to sustain population levels the (national) fertility rate needs to be about 2.1 births per woman” (e.g. BBC 2020, Economist 2023). Such views, however, are misconceived.