Population Projections and Demographic Knowledge in France and Great Britain in the Postwar Period

Emily A. Marshall

Population and Development Review, 2015, vol. 41, issue 2, 271-300

Abstract: type="main">

This study examines how official national population projections—a key mechanism for the production and dissemination of demographic knowledge—contributed to differing interpretations of population and fertility trends in France and Great Britain in the decades following World War II, despite these countries' similar fertility rates during most of this period. Projections presented different visions of the demographic future in the two countries. In France, publication of multiple variants emphasized future contingency, with low variants illustrating future population decline due to prolonged below-replacement fertility. In Britain, publication of a single variant, assuming near-replacement-level fertility rates, projected moderate growth. National population projections thus created divergent representations of the two countries' demographic futures: an ever-present threat of population decline in France, and a reassuring image of stability in Britain. Two principal mechanisms that contributed to cross-national differences in population projections—national demographic history and institutional configurations—are discussed.

Date: 2015
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