Tools and Statistics Unit

Demography

In the year 2000, the total population of the Europe will reach its peak accounting for 729.3 million, of whom 306.6 million in Eastern Europe, 93.7 million in North Europe. 144.8 in Southern Europe, and 184 million in Western Europe. The annual rate of population growth in Europe declined from 0.44% to 0.16% between 1985-1990 and 1990-l995 and is projected to reduce to 0.03% during 1995-2000. After the year 2000, annual rate of total population growth will be negative and continue to decline from -0.08% during 2000-05 to -0.24 during 2020-25.

The population decline trend is merged with the increase in the average age of the population. The proportion of population in 65+ age group is increasing from 11.9% in 1985 to 19.8% in 2025, but the proportion of population in 0-14 age group is decreasing from 21.3% to 16.3% during the same period. Extraordinary decreasing of the child-juvenile population group is seen in Southern and Western Europe. For Southern Europe the size of this age group was estimated of 21.9% in 1985 and projected to be only 13.8% in 2025. In Western Europe the proportion of population in 0-14 age group is declining from 18.3% in 1985 to 15.3% in 2025.

Rural population is remarkably decreasing in Europe from 207.3 million in 1985 and 192.8 million in 1995 to 128.4 million in 2025. Annual rate of rural population change is declining for Europe as a whole from -0.55% during 1985-1990 to -1.59% during 2020-2025 Sub-regional variation of annual rate of changes has slight variations. For example in Eastern Europe it will change from -0.93% (1985-1990) to -1.69% during 2020-25, for the same period it will change from -0.19% to -1.27 in Northern Europe and from -0.10% to -1.66% in Southern Europe. For Western Europe this rate is estimated -0.30% for 1985-1990 and projected to be -1.40% during 2020-2025.

While the rural population of Europe is experiencing negative growth rate and decreasing in all sub-regions, its urban population continues to grow in absolute terms from 520.6 million in 1990 to 572.6 million in 2025. During this period annual rate of urban population growth departs from 0.83% for 1985-1990 to 0.08% for 2020-25. By sub-regions the annual rate of urban population growth will change: in Eastern Europe from 1.18% in 1985-1990 to -0.03% in 2020-25, in Northern from 0.47% to 0.25%, in Southern Europe from 0.59% to 0.14%, and in Western Europe from 0.68% in 1985-90 to 0.12% in 2020-25.

Urbanization level, or percentage of total population residing in settlements classified as urban by the national definitions, was marked by a moderate increase from 70.7% in 1985 to 73.5% in 1995 and it is projected to reach 81.7% in 2025 for the region as a whole. For the major sub-regions, an estimated and projected urbanization level is seen in the following range of meanings: Eastern Europe 65.8% (1985), 70.2% (1995) and 80.1% (2025); Northern-Europe 82.6%, 83.5% and 88.0%; Southern Europe 62.3%, 64.1% and 73.5%; Western Europe 79.9%, 81.5% and 87.0% for 1985, 1995 and 2025, respectively.

Urban settlements in size classes below 500.000 inhabitants are accommodating majority of the urban population in Europe. The estimations for 1985 showed that only 35.8% of the urban population of Europe lived in cities with more than 0.5 million people. Projections for 2015 do not mark sufficient changes, showing that 36.5% of urban population will be residing in cities in this size.

There is no significant evidence on changes within size class distribution of urban population. For example, 6.3% of urban population lived in 5,000,000+ urban agglomeration in 1985 and, according to the projection, 6.8% will live in such agglomerations in 2015. The estimations show that 20.6% of urban population size from 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 in 1985 and projected to be 20.1% in 2015. The following size-group category - from 500,000 to 1,000,000 accumulated 8.9% of urban population in 1985 and will do 9.6% in 2015. Significant portion of urban population lived and will live in urban agglomerations fewer than 500,000. This share is estimated at or to be 64.2% for 1985 and projected to be 63.5% in 2015.

In 2015, there will be five urban agglomerations in 5,000,000+ size categories, namely: Paris (9.6 million), Moscow (9.2 million), London (7.6 million), Essen (6.5 million), and St. Petersburg (5.1 million). The number of urban agglomerations in 1,000,000-5,000,000 size categories is increasing from 54 in 1985 to 62 in 2015. The comparable increase is seen in the number of urban agglomeration of 500,000-1,000,000 size categories: there were 64 in 1985 and will be 78 urban agglomerations of this size in 2015.

Housing and Social Indicators

Despite the low population growth, there are changes in the demand for housing. These changes are associated with the continuing increase of the number of households. According to projections number of households in Europe is increasing from 262.5 million in 1990 up to 328.2 million in 2025. Such an increase accounts for a demand for about 12.5 million of new dwelling units during five-year period 2000-05 and 11.5 million units for the next five-year period 2005-10.

Household number growth rate will slow down from 0.96% in 1995-2000 to 0.42% in 2020-25. Meanwhile, a demand for knew dwelling units will be at 7.8 million units for 2010-15 and about 6.7 million units for the next five-year period (2020-25). In anticipated decrease of the rate of population growth, increase in the number of households is due to the overall reduction of a household size. Average household size was estimated 2.75 for 1990 and was projected 2.19 for the year 2025.

Social achievements in the region are related to increase in live expectancy, higher literacy rate and assess to the health and education services. According to the recent estimation and projections, it is anticipated that life expectancy at birth for male and female were 68.8 and 77.0 years in 1990-95 and will be 74.1 and 80.8 years in 2020-25, respectively. The total Literacy rate was 97% in 1985 and 98.5% in 1995. During this period improvement in a female literacy rate is seen. If in 1985 male Literacy rate was 98.2% and female Literacy rate was 95.8%, in 1995 this gap, decreased, showing male literacy rate at 98.8% and female literacy rate at 98.2%.

Space, Infrastructure & Economic Indicators

Europe, compared with other world regions, is a highly urbanized region with a relatively dense network of cities and towns. The average population density in the region was 313 persons per 1000 ha in 1985 and 322 persons per 1000 ha in 1995. Sub-regional differences ranges from 167 persons per 1000 ha in Eastern Europe and 1,663 persons per 1000 ha in Western Europe in 1995. Average data on population density however cannot explain the differences in the system of settlements, but they show that there is a large variance between countries and even within each country.

The urbanization trends have brought changes in land use. In a number of countries, there were reduction of arable land and land under permanent crops. In United Kingdom this land-use category accounted for 7 million ha in 1985, in 1995 there were only 6 million ha under such use. Instead, other land, which includes built-up areas, increased from 3.7 million ha in 1985 up to 4.6 million ha in 1995. In France other land increased from 8.9 million ha to 9.9 million ha, while land under permanent meadows and pastures decreased from 12.2 to 10.6 million ha.

Land use changes is allied with infrastructure development. Europe has, compared to the other world regions, more dens network of roads and railways. In Austria, for example, density of railways was 66.8 km per 1000 km2 in 1995, in Czech Republic it was 119.7 km per 1000 km2.
 

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