Baby Gap: Germany's Birth Rate Hits Historic Low

Time ^ | May 23, 2010 | Tristana Moore

[C19fan]

Germany is shrinking — and fast. New figures released on May 17 show the birth rate in Europe's biggest economy has plummeted to a historic low, dropping to a level not seen since 1946. As demographers warn of the consequences of not making enough babies to replace and support an ageing population, the latest figures have triggered a bout of national soul-searching and cast a harsh light on Chancellor Angela Merkel's family policies.

[Paladin2]

I’m just practicing to be a journalist or Zer0 explainer (media flak).

[GovernmentShrinker]

Getting into a breeding contest with Arabs and Central/South Americans and Africans is hardly the way to ensure a civilized society for your children to live in after they’re grown up.

Clamping down on immigration from underdeveloped and/or unstable countries to developed and stable countries, should be a high priority. Those populations’ growth rates would naturally slow, if we weren’t providing a release valve for the pressures of their excessively high birth rates, just as the population growth rates of Europeans in North America slowed drastically when our ancestors hit the end of the frontier. Other countries’ borders need to serve as the “end of the frontier” for populations that are growing (and behaving) like feral cats.

[GovernmentShrinker]

The populations of the Soviet Union and its satellite nations did a very effective job of bringing down their anti-freedom governments by starving said governments of new warm bodies to staff the planned growth of government-controlled industry and the military. Making lots of babies in a pyramid-scheme society simply feeds and perpetuates the pyramid scheme. In the West, the socialist governments are trying to fight back by making up the difference with uncontrolled immigration. The native populations need to fight back hard on that front TOO, not compete with it by responding to government pleas for more babies. People are limiting their reproduction because they can’t afford a decent life for children when they’re being so heavily taxed to fund the ever-growing pyramid scheme. We can resume higher rates of reproduction later, after the pyramid scheme has been starved to death, and we can bring children into societies where they can be assured of living with some reasonable semblance of freedom.

[truthguy]

I know a young couple who don't have children. They are ideal for what I'd consider good parents. When I kinda asked why (while discretely trying to be polite) or when they might have children, they replied that they were saving for a house. They wanted a house in a good neighborhood. But even with the decline in real estate prices, homes in good neighborhoods are still sky high. So I asked why they didn't just get a starter home and work their way up. They reply was that most starters were in dangerous places where you put your life at risk. They wanted a home in a neighborhood that was safe enough for children. Starter homes in good neighborhoods are very rare.

So it occurred to me that the home my father purchased after coming home from WW2 was quite small and not fancy at all with only 1 bath and 2 Bedrooms. But it WAS safe. Remember it was the early 1950's and the demographics were very different. So even though the homes were very modest, they were in safe neighborhoods and typically with decent schools. This isn't true today. To get into a safe neighborhood with good schools it takes a ton of money and most young couples hoping to have children simply don't have that type of money. This is a big change in society and accounts for the low birth rates of many groups particularly young white couples.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

Getting into a breeding contest with Arabs and Central/South Americans and Africans is hardly the way to ensure a civilized society for your children to live in after they’re grown up.

It's worse than that ... if you look at that Demographics video, you'll see that it's not just keeping the Muslims out (if you could do that, and I don't think you can) -- it's also, if they weren't even here -- because of those demographics, our society is going into an "implosion" that we can't recover from, as a society ...

[truthguy]

Yes, I agree with much that has been said here. The chief reason for our problems is the 1965 Immigration Reform Act. It was sponsored by none other than Ted Kennedy early in his Senate career. Who would have guessed. This Act was the worst thing that ever happened to America. It was worse than the 2 World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the various assassinations, the great depression, and even the (gasp-) civil war. That's right, even worse than the civil war. Nothing has changed America more than this horrific piece of legislation. It completely destroyed the country and it went largely unnoticed upon its passage. It changed us from a melting pot to a boiling pot. I'll be surprised if we escape the consequences of this bill- of course passed by Democrats and signed by a Democratic president, LBJ.

[BobL]

“it’s also, if they weren’t even here — because of those demographics, our society is going into an “implosion” that we can’t recover from, as a society ...”

...and that doesn’t seem to bother some of us.

[Star Traveler]

Yeah, we’ll just hand-off the implosion to our kids and grandkids ...

[WorldviewDad]

Each couple has to determine this for themselves...my experience has been that when people have talked to me about the things they need to save up for in order to have children...most of the things are not that important, and then I end up scratching my head when they go right into the discussion about the two new cars that they just bought, or the new cell phone plan, or the $100 month cable bill, etc.

Just for back ground, several people do talk to me about children since they are not used to seeing a family with seven children...so I even have strangers approach me at times. For the most part they start out thinking that it is great to see a large family and then go right into how expensive it is to have a child and why they could never have more then one or two. When I tell them that we are a single income family and most of the items they talk about being expensive don’t need to be (buy used if you cannot pay cash for new...works for cars, lawnmowers, clothes, appliances, cribs, highchair, etc.) they seem shocked that I would think like that.

I guess my outlook might be different then most...my wife and I were told by our doctor as a young married couple that we would not be able to have children, and after further testing had that confirmed by other doctors. We decided to leave this in God’s hands and He blessed us with seven children over the next seventeen years.

I have a great life because of the children and I just wish that more people would be able to experience this. I can truely agree with Scripture that they are a blessing...

[truthguy]

Yes people can save on a lot of things. And many have too much stuff. But one thing you don't neglect is safety. You don't want your kids to be brought up in a neighborhood with crack houses or where there is violence and such. That's not the same as sacrificing a new BMW for a used Chevy. Most people will make the automotive sacrifice but putting your life into danger and bringing your child up in a horrible environment is different. I'll bet you are from a rural community and not in a major city or even in the suburbs of a major city. It's different in the battle zone.

[Theophilus]

...just as the population growth rates of Europeans in North America slowed drastically when our ancestors hit the end of the frontier.

The damage to our birth rate has nothing to do with the end of any frontier and everything to do with the development of hormonal birth control. If we don't have children, the God fearing meek will inherit the earth. No arbitrary borders will stop them. The extinct are irrelevant.

Psalms 25
12 What man is he that feareth the LORD? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.
13 His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth.

[Leisler]

Just from memory, and thus suspect, but I recall the old Soviet Union and even Russia today have horrific rates of abortion. There seems to be something in the more socialist
the state, the more abortion. It seems to stunt something in the natural rate of reproduction. The idea of family first is very last were the state and state organs, goals, leaders are all primary.

I think Mormons, Amish, even just frugal familes, can all strike at the financial legs of FedGov. Have conservative kids and don’t make a profit. Be like the lefties, find a way to ‘non profit’ your enterprise.

[BobL]

“Yeah, we’ll just hand-off the implosion to our kids and grandkids ...”

Yea, I’d hate to take the necessary action - for that would compromise our Conservative ideals - and we can’t allow that, now can we?

[WorldviewDad]

I am now in a rural community but we did live in a larger city until just before our fourth child was born, and I remember the horrible feeling seeing the rival gangs walking back and forth in front of our house taunting each other. My point was and is that life is made up of decisions that we make and yes safety is important but none of us knows our future...you are more likely to be killed by a drunk driver in most of the country then by a gun “in the battle zone”.

Based on my experience in both the city and now in the rural environment and the people in each...they both normally list the same reasons for not having children, and the couple you have mentioned is the first one I have heard mention safety, they tend to be financial reasons. I respect the couple that you mentioned because they do seam to be concerned for the well being of the child. I would hope that they can find some way to find a “safe” place so that they would feel comfortable having a child.

[WorldviewDad]

Well said...

God bless...as a father of nine I guess God has already blessed :)

[patton]

Yeah, my American Grandpa had the same problem. For some reason, he thought he was entitled to my earnings.

[Pining_4_TX]

I’m sure all those factors enter into it, but I think it is because they have lost their faith in God. Christians have hope; pagans do not. The cost of living is so high that many people live in very small spaces. Hard to have several kids when you live in a 1,000 sq. ft. apt.

When I was pregnant with our 3rd child, a German asked me if it was my first. When I told him, the baby was our third, he gave me a dirty look and said he hoped I would quit now. Yes, they are pretty much all rabid environmentalists.

[GovernmentShrinker]

The abortion rate in the Soviet Union was as high as 11 per woman AVERAGE, according to some credible sources. However, the reason wasn’t that they just preferred abortion as a means of birth control. It was that the Communist government had no interest in providing contraceptives, so it just didn’t. More money for tanks, space capsules, globe-trotting spies and agitators, etc.

If contraceptives had been available, Soviet women would have eagerly used them — medical care was primitive, with no anesthesia at all for childbirth, much less for abortions. And although anti-abortionist claims that abortions in developed countries often cause sterility are total bunk, I find it rather amazing that Soviet abortions performed by low-paid, don’t-give-a-crap, government-employed doctors, who would suffer no repercussions if they killed a couple dozen patients a year, in poorly equipped facilities with poor sanitation, had so low an incidence of causing sterility that most women got pregnant and re-aborted over and over and over and over and over again.

I lived in Moscow for a couple of years at the height of the Cold War. The scarcity of even the most basic consumer goods was mind-boggling. From time to time, you’d see a line of people winding around for several blocks, even in way-below-zero weather. My dad would always ask somebody in line what it was they were lined up for, and common answers were things like razor blades, towels, etc. When word got out that a store in Moscow had actually received a shipment of such times, it spread like wildfire, and half the city rushed to get in line in hopes getting one. Contraceptives never made it anywhere near the government’s list of things to try to get manufactured to satisfy the citizens’ wants. About the only thing that was consistently available was bread (very good, and very cheap). The Soviet government knew what the people’s bottom line was, to prevent another revolution, and a reliable supply of bread was it.

[Leisler]

Bread and Olympic Games.

[Theophilus]

Thanks,
You'll like this quote:

"The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy." -John Maynard Keynes

Keep "disrupting" brother, God bless!