Social cohesion and mechanisms of depopulation

Depopulation poses a problem for the regional cohesiveness of societies. Fertility, mortality, and migration are the main drivers of depopulation, and different regions may suffer from depopulation due to different mechanisms. We explored the mechanisms of depopulation with the European Social Survey (ESS; n=241,111) data from 360 regions of 30 European countries by examining how fertility, mortality, and migration rates were associated with measures of social cohesion at regional level. Regions with lower religious attendance had higher net population growth. Reciprocal help and lower frequency of meeting friends was associated with fertility; availability of close relationships with mortality; and religious attendance with net-migration. These findings support the hypothesis that the levels of regional social cohesion are related to regional depopulation rates, but that the specific demographic processes may be differently related to different aspects of social cohesion. This emphasizes the importance of assessing fertility, mortality, and migration individually when examining the causes of depopulation.