Posted on 03/18/2006 3:13:31 PM PST by NYer
BERLIN, Germany, March 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) Germanys birth rate is now the lowest in Europe. Only 8.5 babies were born in Germany last year for every 1,000 residents.
In 1964, 1.36 million babies were born in Germany. In 2005, half as many children were born, at just 680,000the birth rate hasnt been this low since the end of the Second World War, according to the Federal Statistical Office.
The German city of Chemnitz, in former East Germany, has the lowest birth rate in the world, with 6.9 babies born per 1,000 residents.
The tradition in the 1950s, 60s and even the 80s in Germany was that a mother was only a mother and looked after the children, Michael Hüther, who heads up Colognes economics institute, told the Guardian.
We are reaching a critical point, he said to Die Welt newspaper. The number of births now determines what happens in the next decade-and-a-half to two decades. You cant revise it afterwards. The availability of human capital will get worse, and act as a brake on growth.
Efforts to shore up the birth rate have been mainly unsuccessful so far. Germanys family minister Ursula von der Leyen introduced tax breaks last year to help couples that wanted children. Increased nursery places and a new state-funded welfare scheme requiring men to take two months off work for families to qualify were also introduced, but none of the changes have had a significant impact on the rate of birth.
All of Europe is facing the same plummeting birthrate. According to Eurostat, the EUs statistics agency, by 2050 Europes population will have fallen by around 1.5%, or 7 million people. The birth rate in Britain is at 12 births per 1,000 residents. In France the number is 12.7, in the Netherlands 11.9, and in Ireland 15.2.
In Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, birth rates are falling as well. Polands rate is 9.3, Bulgaria is at 9 and Latvia has one of the lowest rates, at 8.8.
Worse than that, most German women were busy aborting the halfbreed children they had been impregnated with by the Allied troops (especially by the mongoloid remnants of the victorious Red Army) while their men were dead or in detention camps. There were something like 1.5 million abortions in Germany that year, if memory serves.
What's wrong with them now? My own FReepless spouse is Deutcher, and he's perfectly capable of reproducing ...
Highly regulated and taxed society, rampant feminism with its twin daughters abortion and easy birth control, little new housing available, entry level jobs difficult to come by leaving youth in a state of limbo and unable to afford a family.
It also doesn't help that 2005 is at the 30 year peak of normal fertility for the small cohort of the baby bust of the 1975 period, which is from the small cohort of the 1945 period (lots of dead/interned fathers, mothers being expelled, etc.), which is from the small cohort of the 1915 period (more dead fathers or shipped off in the Army). Germany (and much of the rest of Europe) is facing up to this tripled up tsunami of bad demographics in this period of time. It would seem likely they would recover from it during the next 10-15 years and the birth rate will go up naturally, as there will be more people coming of age to be married and have children.
Hitler had a program that gave married couples a modest suburban house with a small garden plot and orchard, with 25% of the mortgage forgiven for every child born (so four children and you are mortgage free!). You can see many of these houses on the outskirts of the cities, something like 1.5 million of them were built between 1933 and 1939. Some friends of mine live in one outside Stuttgart that the man's parents received through the program.
Probably the worst thing that happened to Germany in WWII was to lose 25% of her land to Poland, and to have 12 million Germans from the East expelled into the remainder of Germany, which had previously held around 55 million people. -25% in land and +20% in population is not a recipe for a reasonable housing market.
Maybe they should re-start Hitlert's "Health Camps" where young German men and women were urged to produce more "super Aryans." But they won't do it. Germany is toast in one more generation, along with most of the Euros. Then they wll become Muslim countries.
Europe is shrinking. But have a little perspective.
Germany + France + England + Italy + Poland + Spain + Netherlands + Belgium + Austria + Hungary + Portugal + Switzerland + Scandanavia + Czechoslovakia + Romania + Yugoslavia + Bulgaria + Greece + Baltics + Ukraine + Belorussia + Ireland = 590 million people, or twice the population of the US in 1/2 of the land.
Even losing 100-200 million to declining fertility would leave them with plenty of people.
The problem is that they are married. If they divorced, they could maximize the 'kindergeld'.
What are the Germans going to do now? Pay couples to have children like they are in Japan?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4599071.stm
Korea is having problems with their birthrate, also.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200301/05/200301052235470059900090109011.html
" His niece and husband both work to jobs for
support. I said to him, maybe they should lower their life style, his reply, they do not live an expensive life style."
Maybe you can suggest that they sell everything they have, get divorced, have him live with her, and become destitute like the Muslims and get on the dole like Muslims. That way they can have children!
The birth dearth is affecting all 1st world Westernized countries.
Granted, they brought poor economic times upon themselves by voting in socialist governments but that does erase the reality of poor employment prospects for any offspring. The cause of the situation is immaterial; things are what they are and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
In other words, don't automatically blame "selfishness", "feminism" and other reasons for why most of the Germans and others in Europe are having so few children. Consider the possibility that they are acting quite rationally.
And yes, abortion is playing a role but the role it is playing is to keep from producing children that they don't want for reasons I mentioned.
I doubt that it is the hopelessness. Instead, I think they are rich, self-indulgent, typical of what Americans call DINKs (double income, no kids).
By the way, put me in that sub-set of the population who chose to be a DINK, and for reasons that had nothing to do with being self-indulgent; and we are not rich, either. Too often, people just assume that those are the reasons why people choose not to have children. If you would like--and I doubt that you would have an interest--I will explain my reasons.
Time to see the sights in Europe before Sharia law takes hold!
I think the problem goes much deeper
LOL! I love Klaus Nomi: ding dong, the witch is dead.
Birth rate nosedives? That's what happens went you lose your balls.
Maybe so, but they will still have an inverted age demographic (many more welfare-using old people than tax-paying young people) which will lead to economic depression and chaos.
There's a Paris- based writer named Claire Berlinski. Read her Menace in Europe, and you won't be able to sleep for 3 nights. It's going to get very nasty over there.
Der schtuppen is kaput im Deutschland? Ach du lieber!
Was ist los, mein herr? Haben sie mich nicht?
Wundebar! Die fraulein ist sctuppworthy..
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