The Mediterranean Islands: Demographic Convergences and Divergences, 1995–2021

Once known as being at the earth’s centre, the Mediterranean Sea includes many inhabited islands. Their populations are diverse on cultural, political, economic, and social grounds. People living there speak a variety of languages and have different national identities. Some of them form the body population of whole nations. That is the case in Cyprus and Malta. The others lie on the periphery of their broader national populations, keeping their specificities and characteristics simultaneously, at least to some degree. The research question in this paper relates to the most recent demographic transition occurring in these areas to identify the existing diversity and possible convergences and divergences occurring over time. Each population will be compared with its national one, except for Cyprus and Malta. Results indicate significant convergences between the populations studied. However, the observed heterogeneity remains high, and the insular populations remain distant from the national ones they belong to most of the time.