Une approche intégrée du vieillissement dans deux villes sidérurgiques : Denain (Nord - Pas-de-Calais) et Seraing (Province de Liège)

Abstract

An integrated Approach to Ageing in two Iron and Steel Metallurgy Cities : Denain (Nord Pas-de-Calais) and Seraing (Province of Liege). In this article we explore the consequences of ageing in two localities located in heavy industry basins from a demographic point of view as well as from the angle of labour. Although Denain and Seraing were built according to comparable development logic in the 19th century, today they respond to unequal forms of recomposition of the economic fabric. They constitute privileged observatories for a comparative analysis of a supra-ageing of the population focusing on : a particularity resulting from the historical perspective of the supra-baby boom, a labour market that is artificially "young", due to early retirement; the response to social management of the structural crisis. Rather than a comparison of situations, we propose a line of reflection, exploring the very notion of ageing, which includes processes that are sometimes quite dynamic and the abilities of these two industrial cities to revive themselves on the basis of population structure with nuanced demographie behaviours, capable of themselves interacting on the evolution of the profile of the remaining active population.