Low fertility in Europe -- is there still reason to worry?

RAND Corporation ^ | June 17, 2011 | Unknown

[decimon]

The post-war trend of falling birth rates has been reversed across Europe, according to a new study. However, despite an increasing emphasis on family and fertility policies in Europe, this recent development involves social, cultural and economic factors more than individual policy interventions.

For some decades, couples have been having children later in life. But birth-rates among younger women have stabilised and the long-term trend towards lower fertility rates has been reversed.

Politicians are still left to grapple with problems associated with an ageing population as Europeans live longer and birth rates remain below the level needed to dramatically change the balance between young and older people.

In 2004, RAND Europe published a report which explored the issues associated with low birth rates in Europe. At that time the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman in every Member State of the EU. This new study updates the findings of the earlier report and examines the impact of the policy options available.

Lead author Stijn Hoorens said: 'The effects of individual policies aimed at family and fertility are relatively small and now the economic crisis has added a new level of uncertainty for policy makers. Early figures suggest that birth rates have fallen back in the wake of the economic down-turn.'

Key findings and implications

Since the early 2000s there have been signs of recovering fertility. In all but four countries of the EU (Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta and Portugal), fertility rates increased between 2000 and 2008.

Despite this, the TFR remains below the replacement rate in all 27 EU countries and more than half (14) have a fertility rate below 1.5 children per women (all else being equal a fertility rate of 1.5 would lead to a population halving in size in fewer than seven decades).

There are signs of a 'two speed Europe' developing with north western European states having higher fertility rates than central, southern and German speaking states.

Nowadays, 1 in 5 babies in Europe has a mother who was born abroad. Migration is not the main reason behind the recovery of period fertility in Europe however. The reproductive behaviour of migrants played only a relatively modest role. But migration does tend to cause a rapid infusion of women in their reproductive years, which has a mitigating effect on population ageing.

Despite the recovery, Europe's populations continue to age and policy makers will have to address the consequences for pensions, health care etc. Emerging evidence suggests that the economic crisis has triggered an end to the trend of recovering fertility.

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The report is available to read and download on the RAND Europe website at: http://www.rand.org/embargoed/monographs/MG1080.html

[Tax-chick]

I hope you’re right about a general trend toward a higher birthrate, rather than isolated data points. It’s not unusual for very religious families in the US to have many children, but there aren’t enough, as a percentage of the population, to affect the average very much.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Name me a nation in the present or past that did not become secular or materialist as its prosperity rose.

Not every man in the Middle East is having 50 children because the gap between rich and poor is very wide. They are commanded by Allah to have as many children as possible as new recruits for the jihad against the planet.

Even today Saudi Arabia has a national fertility rate of only 3.0 whereas the USA is at 2.1.

[WashingtonSource]

bump

[kearnyirish2]

Well, the secular part is easiest: the Gulf states have resisted secular influences as they’ve become the wealthiest nations on the earth. If anything, they’ve become increasingly religious.

As far as the materialistic part, I think you have to ask yourself which came first, the chicken or the egg? I personally see a noticeable decline in my standard of living as a result of having children, and have always understood that was the price (having come from a large family myself). The “prosperity” rose as breeding tapered off; we now have a whole segment of forty- to sixty- year-olds griping about the invasion of foreigners without realizing their own contribution to this issue.

When societies choose new cars over new children, they aren’t long for this world (see western Europe, as well as the US WASP culture for examples). The secular, materialistic way of life in the US isn’t being overthrown in some violent invasion of darker people from the south; it is being bred (or rather, not bred) into extinction on its own. Who do you think is having the lion’s share of the 2.1 children in the US?

[MinorityRepublican]

bttt