| dc.description.abstract | 1 • [3!L) POPULATION eurostat I ________ ~.._____, 4.8.1981 UP-DATING OF PRINCIPAL DEMOGRAPHIC SERIES The recently issued EUROSTAT publication "Demographic Statistics, 1979" contains de-tailed figures of population by sex and age group, births, deaths, migration, marria-ges, divorces, life expectancy, etc. for years up to 1979, for individual Member countries as well as for the Community as a whole. Preliminary data for the year 1980 for the principal series of population figures are now available for most countries and are presented in the table below. The total population of the Community of Ten in mid-1980 was 271 million persons, which compares with figures of 264 million in the USSR and 221 million in the USA (1979 data). The principal feature of note in the 1980 statistics is an up-turn in the birth rate in the FR of Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom possibly due to chan-ges in population structure; this brings the annual number of births in these countries back to the level of 1974. The number of marriages showed some increase in 1980 compared with 1979 in FR of Germany and the Netherlands while remaining fairly stable elsewhere. Numbers of deaths recorded showed little change between 1979 and 1980 while infant mortality continued to decline. |
