DEMOGRAFIC AGING IN FRANCE AND ROMANIA. A COMPARATIVE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Demographic aging is a problem faced by all developed countries, especially the European ones, with social and economic consequences that already manifest themselves. Demographic aging means changing age structure in favor of older ages (65 years and over) as a share in the total population, to the detriment of young ages, as a long-lasting trend. Sociologists and demographers who have researched this phenomenon consider that the demographic aging process begins when the proportion of the elderly is over 12% in the total population. France has been affected by this demographic phenomenon for several decades. And Romania is experiencing an aging process of the population, having as main causes the decline in birth rates and external migration. This worrying phenomenon due to its long-term consequences concerns policymakers from EU member states, which, on the basis of multidisciplinary analyzes, have developed a number of public policies in the field of population aimed at addressing the socio-economic consequences. This paper proposes a statistical analysis of the demographic aging in France and Romania following three main dimensions: the aging of the total population, the aging of the labor force and the aging of the elders. The statistical and demographic indicators describing the population aging phenomenon (the share of the young population, the share of the economically active population, the share of the elderly population, the demographic aging index, the demographic dependency ratio, the average age of the population and the median age of the population) will be analyzed based on a comparative approach taking into consideration the case of France and Romania, in the european context.