Different demographic growth drivers on either side of borders

In France between 2010 and 2015, close to the borders, most labour market area reported a natural surplus, apart from the Spanish border. Conversely, neighbouring foreign border regions (in Germany, Italy and Belgium) are suffering from more marked ageing of their population and a weakly positive and even sometimes negative natural balance.

More variable, the residential attractiveness of French border labour market area differs depending on their geographical location. The proximity of Switzerland, economically and demographically dynamic, has an impact on neighbouring French border regions, while the attractiveness of Luxembourg only affects its immediate surroundings. Two-thirds of border workers living in France work in one of these two countries.

In the labour market area of Nord and Pas-de-Calais, the rise in the number of inhabitants is only sustained by the dynamism of the birth rate, while across the border in Belgium it comes particularly from the migratory surplus.

In the Alsace plain, the higher number of births than deaths is increasing the population. Across the Rhine, the population is growing in the border regions of Bade-Wurtemberg, but falling in the Sarre linked to high population ageing and a falling birth rate.

In some Southern regions, ageing on either side of the Italian and Spanish borders is compensated by their residential attractiveness.