EU to shrink by 50m people as birth rate hits record low

The European Union’s population is expected to plunge by 53 million by the end of the century after the bloc’s birth rate fell to a record low. In new projections released on Thursday, the number of people living across the continent will fall to 398.9 million by 2100, down from 451.8 million today. The population is expected to grow by an extra 1.5 million over the next three years, before then shrinking consistently over the next six decades. This decline is equivalent to the entire populations of Spain and Ireland disappearing. The forecasts also show that the age of the...