Understanding trajectories of population decline across rural and urban Europe: A sequence analysis

By Niall Newsham, Francisco Rowe. Population, Space and Place, 2022

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Population decline is projected to become widespread in Europe, with the continental population set to reverse its longstanding trajectory of growth within the next five years. This represents unfamiliar demographic territory. Despite this, literature on decline remains sparse and our understanding porous. Particular epistemological deficiencies stem from a lack of both cross-national and temporal analyses of population decline. This study seeks to address these gaps through the novel application of sequence and cluster analysis techniques to examine variations in population decline trajectories since 2000 in 696 sub-national areas across 33 European territories. The methodology allows for a holistic understanding of decline trajectories capturing differences in the ordering, timing, magnitude and spatial structure of population decline. We identify a typology of population decline distinguishing seven distinct pathways to depopulation and chart their geographies. Results revealed differentiated pathways of depopulation in continental sub-regions, with consistent and rapid declines in the east, persistent but moderate declines in central Europe, accelerating declines in the south and decelerating population declines in the west. Results also revealed differentiated patterns of depopulation across the rural-urban continuum, with urban and populous areas experiencing deceleration in population decline, while population decline accelerates or stabilises in rural areas. Small and mid-sized areas displayed heterogeneous depopulation trajectories, highlighting the importance of local contextual factors in influencing trajectories of population decline. Population decline is set to overtake population growth and become the main trend of population change in most countries across wide-ranging societal and economic implications. Yet, we know very little about the spatial and temporal dynamics of population decline across the urban-rural continuum. This study sought to address this gap and developed a unique methodological approach to analyse the trajectories of depopulation in a total of 696 sub-national areas across 43 countries in Europe over an 18-year period (2000-2018). Our findings revealed that depopulation has occurred across the rural-urban continuum; in rural, urban and intermediate areas of Europe. A key contribution of our work is the identification of a typology of European population decline distinguishing seven distinct pathways to depopulation. These pathways represent the systematic ways in which population decline has unfolded, temporally, since the year 2000. The pathways recognise persistent, temporary, accelerating and decelerating trajectories of depopulation and are distinguished by the extent, sequencing and timing of their transitions between various intensities of population decline. From our analysis we highlight three main findings.

Subfields: Demography, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Urban Studies

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ec6a152e6e36e950b8958c27a8f5cfeed39e54fa