… and Europe’s Destiny Dwindles.
The quotation is borrowed from Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857), the reputed originator of the study of ‘sociology’, after having experienced the French Revolution.
The polities of the defined continent of Europe (excluding Russia, which lies in two continents) contain 7.6% of the world’s population in 2023, as estimated by the World Factbook of the CIA.
And the population in 21 European countries is declining, despite immigration from other countries and continents.
The other notable characteristic of these and other European countries is that of Total Fertility Rate—”the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age.” (Source). A rate of two children per woman is considered the replacement rate for a given population.
In the above chart, the Total Fertility Rates range from 1.24 in Italy to 1.81 in Montenegro. Even the immigration to some of these countries does not overcome the low birth rates sufficiently to keep the population at a constant level. And in nine of these countries, whatever immigration may be occurring is overcome by more people leaving than arriving.
The world has a population growth rate of slightly more than 1%. Only three of Europe’s nations reach or exceed this rate: Ireland, Luxembourg, and Ukraine (although I am doubtful of the latter’s accuracy—this is all self-reporting). Even so, the fertility rates of these three countries is well below the optimum 2.0. Their immigration rates are high, which accounts for at least some of the higher than expected population growth rate.
Please note, also, that the world’s median age is 31 years. Just look at the last column on the right to see how ‘old’ Europe is.
The conclusion I offer, once again, is that whatever Europe is, is fading away.