The population of Europe: yesterday and today

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At the beginning of our era, Europe was, by modern standards, quite a sparsely populated continent.And this despite the fact that some of its countries, particularly Greece and the Roman Empire, were the center of world civilization, culture and science.

Europe's population for a long time was growing very slowly, so that the fault had endless war, a small life expectancy and high infant mortality.Of course, the level of medicine of that time was generally not very high, in addition, the services of qualified doctors, as a rule, have been available primarily wealthy people that contribute to the overall picture.The scientists were able to calculate the demographic data of the European continent 2-3 thousand. Years ago.According to these reports, on this continent in 400 BC, there were about 19 million people.Even 200 years later this figure has increased by only 11 million. Thus, at the time the increase was only 5-6 million people for a century.By the time of the birth of Christ Europe's population reached 42,000,000.During the heyday of the Roman Empire, the power of this growth is slowing.And at the time of the collapse of the states of the continent is experiencing a demographic catastrophe associated with the diminution of the population, not least because of the brutal wars.Europe's population at the time was gradually reduced.The situation stabilized only after two centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire.Since then, the demographics are slowly but steadily growing.

In the nineteenth century the population of Europe, despite the socio-economic problems that are typical for the time, has nearly doubled, and reached the end of the century, 383 million (against 195 million. At the beginning of the century).Its growth has been slowed by the demographic losses in a terrible meat grinder of World War I, after which the continent was struck by the Spanish flu epidemic, which worldwide took life from 50,000,000 to 90,000,000 people.

Over the next 20 years, the continent continued population growth, which gave the continent has 70 million people.He slowed down because of the huge human losses in World War II.But after some time, in the 60s, began the so-called "baby-boom".This coincided with the revision of traditional values.However, in the seventies, the birth rate begins to decline sharply.And in the '90s in almost all European countries, the death rate began to exceed the birth rate.However, it never ceased to increase life expectancy.

Now the population abroad in Europe is about 830 million people.And almost all of its countries the birth rate is far below the level of natural reproduction.The number of marriages decreases, while the number of divorces is growing steadily.Children are increasingly born out of wedlock, and in some countries (Estonia, Scandinavian countries, Eastern Germany), the number of "fatherless" - at least half of all newborns.

What sways fertility, but only in Albania, Ireland and Iceland, the figure still stands at the level of reproduction of the population.In other countries, every woman on average gives birth to at least two children.His role is played by the rejection of traditional values ​​and the principle of "first career - then the family."In general, the indigenous population of Europe is dying, and this process, according to experts, can not be stopped.Therefore, these demographic losses are compensated by the immigration of "non-white" countries.Most of the "new Europeans" - a Muslim from the Maghreb, Africa, the Arab States and Turkey.Many believe that due to this mass immigration, Europe is in the middle of this century will be an Islamic continent.This opinion is justified by the statistics, because the whole Muslim women give birth to many more children than Germans, an English or French.Therefore, in the next few decades, Europe will be a completely different continent.