Italy and Germany are the two European countries that lost the most population naturally (births minus deaths) during 2017. In Italy, during the past year, 458,200 boys and girls were born and 639,100 people died, which gives a negative difference of 190,900 people. In the case of Germany, the drop was 148,000 people: 785,000 births compared to 933,000 deaths.
Spain ranks eighth in this ranking of natural population variation (in absolute figures) among countries where there was a decrease in the number of inhabitants. In 2017, a total of 390,000 boys and girls were born in Spain, while the number of deaths was 421,300. Thus, the resulting negative figure was 31,200 people.
In the European Union as a whole, the natural balance was also negative: there were 5,058,600 births compared to 5,262,700 deaths, which yields a total negative of 204,200 people.
The countries that experienced the greatest natural growth in their population were Turkey, with an increase of 865,300 people, France (164,600) and the United Kingdom (147,900).
If we analyze the relative data, the countries where the proportion of births versus deaths was most negative were Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, and Latvia. In Bulgaria, for every thousand inhabitants, the population naturally decreased by 6.5 people during 2017. In Serbia, the drop was 5.5 people per thousand inhabitants, while in Croatia and Latvia it was 4.1 fewer people per thousand inhabitants. In the case of Spain, the reduction was 0.7 people per thousand inhabitants, while the average for the European Union as a whole was also negative (-0.4 people).
The largest relative increases occurred in Turkey, where for every thousand inhabitants there were 10.8 more births than deaths, Ireland (6.6), and Iceland (5.3).
These data, which were offered recently by Eurostat, refer to the natural variation of the population (births minus deaths), without taking into account the increase or reduction due to the arrival or departure of migrant population.
The total figures on the European population were analyzed in a recent Post-Data from The New Barcelona Post, where a ranking of European countries according to their total population was offered.