“Demographic ageing of Europe and its impact on the birth rate”,

Abstract

The paper analyzes the demographic ageing in the countries from the European Union in the past half century. Two panel regression models are used to determine the impact of the death rate, percentage of young population, percentage of the old population and the GDP per capita on the birth rate. In the early period (1960-1990) all demographic factors and the economic factor GDP per capita have statistically significant influence on the birth rate. In the latter period (1991-2015) only demographic factors have significant influence on the natallity. The research also offers descriptive analysis for each EU country individually, and classifies the countries in four groups (starting from countries with least favorable demographic situation to countries with positive demographic trends). In general, this paper gives insight on the demographic ageing of the population in EU countries, explains the reasons and the consequences due to this situation, and some possible solutions.