A survey of Europe

How many EU citizens? What is the demographic weight of the EU compared to world population? What are the EU countries that have the highest percentage of workers employed in agriculture? Which are those where social networks are most popular? Researches by Eurostat – in addition to providing official data on economic trends, on employment, demographic and social trends in the 27 and in the candidate countires – often provide figures on interesting curiosities that help understand the lines of development of the old continent.Grey-haired Europe. The EU, with 500 million inhabitants, accounted for 7% of the world population, amounting to 6.9 million. However, to population projections, by 2060 it will drop to 5%, while the world will have 9.6 billion inhabitants. The figures are contained in the publication "The EU in the world 2013; A statistical portrait", presented by the statistics bureau of the European Commission. The document draws a comparison between continents, focusing on the figures regarding G-20 countries, i.e., the planet’s twenty major economic powers. The findings highlight economic, demographic, healthcare, education, technologic as well as energy trends. (www.europa.eu/eurostat). The Eurostat survey shows that in 50 years China will no longer be the most populous country: figures are bound to drop from 1 340 mn inhabitants to 1 210 mn, while India is expected to grow from 1 220 million to 1 720 mn. Average fertility rate in the EU is currently 1.6 births per woman in fertile age (below the population replacement rate of 2.1), which is the cause of the EU ageing population trend. The world averaged 2.5 births per woman, while Saudi Arabia (3.0), India (2.7) and South Africa (2.6) had the highest rates. China’s is expected to remain 1.6. Agriculture today. Poland and Romania have the highest percentage of agricultural workers, while Austria has a a record-breaking number of land devoted to organic farming. At the end of 2012, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), Eurostat published a volume providing a snapshot of the primary sector, comprising agriculture, livestock, forestry and fishing. The research indicates the number of people employed, production lines, land use, rural development, the processing industry, the situation of forests and fisheries. It appears, for example, that people active in this field amount to 23 million, including the holders of farms, family members working in the farm, full-time or part-time labour. Sector enterprises amount to approximately 12 million. In addition to Poland and Romania, Italy, Spain, France and Germany register relatively high proportions of farmers (yet still small compared to the total labor force, ranging between 2 and 5%). There are 156 thousand organic farming businesses in the EU27, representing 1.3% of the total, while areas intended for this type of production amount to 5 million hectares (2.9% of cultivated land). Austria is the reign of organic production with 13% of companies and 12% of arable land. Unbalanced salaries. 17% of EU workers’ salaries are remarkably lower than the average wages in their own country. Eurostat produced data from the EU27 and candidate countries, updated to 2010. The findings show that the "low wages" (defined as less than or equal to two-thirds of the national average gross hourly wage) represent 27% in Latvia and Lithuania, that hold the negative record, 25% in Romania, 24% in Poland. Among the larger countries, low wages in Germany and the United Kingdom are 22% (which correspond to situations of disadvantaged personal or family income compared to the national average), Spain 14%, Italy 12% and France, which is among "virtuous" countries with only 6%. The greatest balance between the wage earners of the same nation occurs in Sweden (only 2.5% of low wages), followed by Finland, France, Belgium and Denmark. In addition to remarkable national differences, Eurostat records significant differences between women (21% of low wages) and men (13%), between workers with low education (29%) and higher education (6%), and between employees with closed-end contracts or temporary workers (31%) and regularly employed workers (16%). Web, record-breaking numbers in the North. The highest proportion of social network users is recorded in Portugal while the Finns are the most frequent customers of online banking. Lithuania and Estonia register the highest percentages of those having used the internet in 2012 for reading online news and newspapers. Eurostat provided an overview of Internet use and broadband connections in Europe. In the 27 member countries, plus Croatia, Iceland, Norway, Montenegro, Macedonia and Turkey (subject of the Eurostat survey), "more than three-quarters of homes had access to the internet in 2012, compared with just under half in 2006". Broadband connection is present in 72% of EU27 households, compared with 30% in 2006. Eurostat highlights significant differences between countries. For example, the percentage of Internet access points varies from a maximum of 90% in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, to a minimum of 51% in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece (54%).