According to the latest annual assessment of INSEE, the natural balance reaches its lowest historic level in 2022. The French population amounts to 68 million inhabitants on January 1, 2023, up 0.3 %.
by Solène Cordier
The slight embellishment of 2021, which displayed an unexpected rise in births after the 2020 demographic shock caused by the COVID-19, will have been short-lived. In 2022, not only births are falling down, underlines the latest demographic assessment of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), presented Tuesday, January 17, but is added to this a high number of deaths, greater than projections, which makes the year 2022 that when the natural balance reaches its lowest historical level. The French population amounts to 68 million inhabitants at the 1 er 2023, up 0.3 %. Here are the main lessons in this annual assessment.
a stagnation of life expectancy
A life expectancy at the birth of 85.2 years for women and 79.3 years for men. After a significant drop in 2020, directly linked to the pandemic, men earn only 0.1 years of life expectancy in 2022, compared to 2021. That of women did not progress. Result: life expectancy for all stagnates; It is even 0.4 years lower than that of 2019. It is on this phenomenon of stagnation that INSEE chose to emphasize in its balance sheet of the year 2022.
“On the decade 2010-2019, before the pandemic, there were gains of life expectancy for men and women, although more slowed for women, recalls Sylvie Le Minez, manager of the Unit of demographic and social studies at INSEE. The phenomenon observed in 2022 is directly linked to the number of deaths, which remains very high, “said the expert. With 667,000 deaths in 2022 (5,000 more than 2021), the count is close to that of 2020, dark year, with only 2,000 additional deaths. Compared to the pre-Cavid era, 2019, 54,000 more people died last year.
Admittedly, the arrival of several generations of the baby boom at high ages plays in this upward trend in the number of deaths in recent years. But the gap between the mortality recorded in 2022 and that which was expected in the projections is considerable; There are thus 46,000 additional deaths.
How to explain it? While recalling with caution not to have the causes of death, INSEE notes that 2022 was marked by the continuation of the epidemic of COVID-19, as well as by an “late influenza epidemic, with a peak in April, and three heat wave periods “. There is not only “the deaths linked directly to the covid, but also those which are indirectly attributable to him, like people suffering from chronic diseases, which could have been weakened, and the deaths due to the influenza epidemic and the episodes of heat wave “, specifies Laurent Toulemon, demographer at the National Institute of Demographic Studies.
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