The number of inhabitants in Paris continues to decrease, according to a recent study from the French institute INSEE,

Paris no longer attracts

A drop of 16% since 1968

Over the period from 2012 to 2022, Paris lost nearly 123,000 inhabitants, according to INSEE. The continuous rise in the price of real estate in the city and the search for a better living environment for its residents explain this vertiginous fall in Parisian demography. The French capital is gradually losing its attractiveness. In 2012, INSEE had counted 2,240,642 inhabitants in Paris, against 2,117,702 last year. In one decade, the number of The number of inhabitants in Paris has therefore fallen by 122,919 people. The city of light no longer attracts and its inhabitants are more and more likely to want to leave. The latest studies have underlined that these departures are often due to the search for a better living environment. A trend that has been confirmed among young couples. Nearly one in two households leaving the capital is under 40, even if 60% of these couples remained in the Paris region. It can also be noted that over a longer time scale, the capital has lost a significant part of its population. If we go back to 1968, we see that Paris had 2,590,771 inhabitants. A brief calculation shows a drop of 16%.

A trend of departures linked to confinements

An exodus deemed “fairly slow but persistent for five years”, according to the daily newspaper Le Parisien. The movement would also be particularly marked since 2014, well before the trend of departures linked to confinements… One of the explanations could be found in the increase in real estate prices. Young households in which the reference person is under 25 are the most likely to settle in Paris, for studies or because there are more job opportunities there. But from the age of 30, as they grow, “households gradually move away from the heart of the region”. In detail, “Paris gains young households under 30 with the rest of Île-de-France (+ 4,400) and loses from 30 years old (balance of – 10,000 households between 30 and 65 years old)”.