Les perspectives démographiques européennes. Une synthèse des projections démographiques à l'horizon 2050 pour les pays de l'Union européenne

This article exposes briefly (and without discussion) the most recent demographic projections drawn for the countries of the European Union for the year 2050, published by the Netherland’s Bureau of Statistics for the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat).
The authors remind us first of the hypotheses – limited to three in each case which have been chosen for each of the given variables: fecundity, mortality and net immigration. They then present the five extreme scenarios implied by all possible combinations of the selected hypotheses and therefore all possible paths of demographic evolution.
While most of the time we only use the median of demographic projections (leading us to suppose that it is the most probable), this synthesis has the merit of showing the complete spectrum of possible futures. It suggests the amplitude of uncertainty concerning the populations of member countries, for although aging is general and irreversible for all of them, the intensity and the schedule of the problem is not identical among countries.