As a lot of you are probably aware, France has historically had a rather large population in comparison to the rest of Europe. This didn't last though. The French went from a comfortable lead on what would become the German Empire, to being left in the dust. What I want to know, is why?
To have a proper place to start, I decided that we needed some graphs to better visualize exactly what happened. The first two graphs show the total population of 12 European countries in the period. Germany is the territory that would later become the German Empire, Ireland is the whole island, the rest are present day territory. It might not be a 100% accurate, given that some territory changed hand in the period, but the overall trends shouldn't really be affected by it.
The third graph shows just the population growth, to make it easier to compare between countries. We see England flying off the chart, Denmark being both really average and very stable, and the Irish rocketing off only to crash and burn. All the while, France just plods away, never really managing to ever take off.
In the final graph I've plotted in population density, in case that would give us a clue. While this might perhaps explain Belgium, which starts off really high on the graph, it doesn't really seem to explain France.
So my question are these:
To have a proper place to start, I decided that we needed some graphs to better visualize exactly what happened. The first two graphs show the total population of 12 European countries in the period. Germany is the territory that would later become the German Empire, Ireland is the whole island, the rest are present day territory. It might not be a 100% accurate, given that some territory changed hand in the period, but the overall trends shouldn't really be affected by it.
The third graph shows just the population growth, to make it easier to compare between countries. We see England flying off the chart, Denmark being both really average and very stable, and the Irish rocketing off only to crash and burn. All the while, France just plods away, never really managing to ever take off.
In the final graph I've plotted in population density, in case that would give us a clue. While this might perhaps explain Belgium, which starts off really high on the graph, it doesn't really seem to explain France.
So my question are these:
- How would you explain the differences in population growth in these countries during the period?
- Can we figure out what went wrong in France by comparing it to its European counterparts?
- What are the historical causes of the differences we see here?
- Do you see any way to mix this graph up a little, by having for example France grow quickly while England stagnates? Can this happen incidentally, a side effect of another change, or would it have to be a conscious decision by policy makers to increase population growth? The French did this after WW2, but would it be realistic in this period?