Posted on 01/28/2006 8:05:41 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
Chancellor Angela Merkel has pushed Germany's low birth rate to the top of the political agenda for the first time since the Nazi era as an expert said the nation could die out if the trend continued.
A third of German women are not having children, a remarkable figure even compared with low birth rates in the rest of Europe. Among graduates the figure is as high as 40 per cent.
Every year 100,000 more Germans die than are born and each generation is shrinking by about a third.
Even in the poverty and despair after the Second World War, more babies were born than now. The figure has slumped to 1.3 children per woman, far short of the replacement rate of 2.1.
Some observers attribute the trend to young people's reluctance to sacrifice their comfortable way of life and leisure time to bring up the next generation.
Others argue that German society expects women to stay at home to look after the family and that child care is inadequate and expensive.
Mrs Merkel, 51, is not the best role model: she has no children. Asked why, she said: "It just did not fit in with my career path."
But she is fully aware that the onus is on her, the country's first female leader, to improve the lot of women, raise the birth rate and put Germany back at the top as an economic power within a decade.
"If the birth rate continues to fall, Germans are at risk of dying out," said Harald Michel, the head of the Institute for Applied Demography. He foresees a future in which the workforce will be unable to support the elderly, nor indeed the country.
Past reluctance to tackle the problem is largely explained by the sensitivity of child-bearing in a country which, under the Nazis, did all it could to raise the birth rate for the state.
"The Nazi ideal of kinder, küche, kirche (children, kitchen, church) still prevails," said Jutta Schmidt, 33, a sociologist and mother of two children from Hamburg.
"The pressure on women to fulfil the maternal role, coupled with the lack of support to carry it out, such as part-time jobs and child care provision, is so great that many would rather forgo the opportunity than risk failure."
In Nazi times women were awarded motherhood medals for bearing children. Child bearing was strictly under the control of the state, not the individual.
Had Ursula von der Leyen, 47, been a mother in the Third Reich, she would have won the silver medal. She is a gynaecologist, a mother of seven and, as the family minister, is Mrs Merkel's greatest hope.
She says that Germany is "extremely backward" in its attitude towards the family. Unless the birth rate rises, "we will have to turn out the light".
Mrs von der Leyen, a member of the Christian Democratic Union, has offered women one-year wage replacement subsidies and to raise the amount of child care that can be offset against tax. But some of her proposals, such as encouraging fathers to stay at home for two months after the birth of a child, have provoked stiff opposition even from male party colleagues. They accuse her of wanting to "tie men to the nappies".
For many, child care and not money is at the root of the problem. The country that invented the kindergarten 170 years ago is pitifully lacking in child care places.
Only 10 per cent of children under three have access to pre-school care and most of those are sent home at noon, a 2001 study showed. In Denmark the figure is 64 per cent and in Britain 34 per cent.
The problem is exacerbated by employers who are unwilling to help workers with young children - and schools, most of which also close at noon.
"People have to give up their careers because there are no child care places," said Renate Köcher, the director of the Allensbach polling institute. "And because they have given up their jobs, we have neglected to create more child care places."
Germany is also a country in which everything happens comparatively late. The average starting school age is almost seven. University takes the best part of a decade to complete, so the average student is in her late twenties when she graduates.
Therefore, finding a job, particularly in these days of high unemployment, stands much higher on the list of priorities than having babies.
Germany is in need of massive economic overhauls. They are really starting to feel the effects of decades of socialists running things.
The lack of children is a huge problem and is going to hit them really hard within 10 to 20 years.
liberals and muslims are whos been taking control.
I would like to make a donation. ;-)
Once a civilization is established, every person should marry and have exactly 2 kids; more or fewer kids, we grow or shrink toward different kinds of crisises.
Of couse disease and asexuality cause problems, so in reality fewer people actually marry, but those who do need to have more than 2 kids to compensate for stillborns and childless losers....
We can just send some of our babies over to Germany. They're called Democrats.
This is a mission where I believe I could do a lot of help.
The valkyrie on Project Runway is doing her bit.
Did the Germans rip up the Autobahn after World War 2?
Shifting economic aid to young families is not the answer. One of the biggest reasons women work while trying to raise a family is the fear that if they do not, they will become destitute should they outlive their husbands. I would like to hear more debate on how to solve this problem because it will be the only way to convince women to have children and raise them themselves instead of relying on the socialist network to raise their children for them.
Germany needs to start promoting a culture of family again.
The liberals have created a culture where women who have children are seen as "not cool and hip". Everything in Germany these days is about ME-ME-ME.
The colleges and welfare system have made it easy for students to spread out their schooling, taking one or two classes a quarter and end up spending their entire 20's finishing a standard four year degree.
The daycares and pre-schools need to knock this "You have to pick up kid at no later than 2pm" crap off.
On the ecnomic front, its just as bad. Germany has some of the worst % rates of startup businesses. Their is soo many layers of taxes and red tape to do the simpliest things.
And many of the german people in their 20's are sick of watching half their salaries taken out to pay the bloated pensions of the baby boomer generation and avoid entering the workforce.
I thought being barefoot and pregnant was not having your lot improved.
I'm sure the Muslims will have a "solution" for that.
Again, the fathers of the children should raise them.
There are some really hot German women. Der Vaterland has my service to perform this noble duty, one in which I'm willing to perform time and time and time and time and time and time and time again. Ich mochte helfen, bitte. Ich brauche helfen. Bitte, BITTE!!!!
WAsn't such a program already instituted here and called welfare/AFDC/TANF?
I'm always amazed that this issue rises on occasion, and nothing changes. The downward demographic shift was projected over 30 years ago, yet no one paid any attention. Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical Humane Vitae condemning contraception and abortion, realizing the outcome. And several decades before Paul VI, in the late 19th Century, another Pope Leo XII, I believe, stated that contraception was race suicide. Well, tsk, tsk, so much for telling the Church it doesn't have a clue about modern society. I guess as "modern" Western society heads down the muslim dominated toilet, people will continue to deny the wisdom of the Holy Fathers over the past 100 years on this issue. Nothing like a post Christian, neo pagan, socialist, materialist, humanist society committing slow suicide over the last four decades in particular. Hold on to your hats, boys and girls, the ride is going to get a lot rougher, unless you start procreating and decide to save your civilization. A bigger house, fancier car and more vacations ain't going to do you much good if mohammed changes the rules on you and either attempts to enslave you or saw your head off. But then again, I suspect many more would rather convert and going on living a lie.
Socialism leads to death. It is as simple as this. In the long run, it is unsustainable, it collapses on itself. Socialism is Westernism run wild, in the US, we have this problem as well (we are Socialism-lite), only not quite as bad.
My supervisor is one of those. She makes the most inappropriate comments to workers who are expecting.
Yep. That's the sad truth.
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