Can Europe Survive Its Population Plunge? (Auto-Genocide -- or Geno-Suicide -- of a Civililation)

InsideCatholic ^ | Augut 20, 2010 | Mary Jo Anderson

[WorldviewDad]

Amen

It is a matter of deciding priorities...and unfortunately most choose “stuff” over children.

God bless

[doc11355]

I was stationed in rural, small town Bavaria in southeastern Germany a few years earlier than you.

Now that you mention it, we weren't exactly swamped with attractive, 20-something female companionship, either. The locals were mostly in their 40's or older, it seemed.

[WorldviewDad]

I never stated that African Christians would save Europe's culture. I said that it could make things interesting, and this was in response to another post about some of them moving from Africa to Europe.

And Europeans were not low intelligent tribal people at some point in their history...they were always highly educated and intelligent...interesting

[TopQuark]

Very well said, Mrs. Don-o.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You really think 21st century demographers, with their longitudinal studies of age cohorts, and billions of dollars riding on government, marketing, and workforce investment, use linear extrapolation from the present? If it were that, things would rather deceptively "look" a good deal better, because the indigenous (white European) population may still be growing a tad in some places, due to the fact that some babies are still being born, while the boomers haven't died off yet.

The problem is the typical 1.2 -1.6 white European fertility rates, when the society's median age edges up past menopause. Historically, no known society has every recovered from that. The number of those not in the workforce based on age or disability inexorably outnumbers new workers coming into the worksforce, which puts increasingly big costs onto the potentially childbearing generation. They bear the burden of provide the upkeep for their elders, and thus they keep delaying and deferring their own childbearing.

The new factors here, are the universal distribution of the means to effectively stop childbirths (contraception, sterilizxationa nd abortion) coupled with a much longer life expectancy (~80) prouducing a huge elderly class plus a childless young adult cohort simultaneously.

This did not happen during the Black Death. This did not happen during the Mongol Invasions. A few years ago Italy became the first nation in history where there are more people over the age of 60 than there are under the age of 20. Germany, Greece and Spain as well as Japan and other Asian Rim nations, have now crossed that same divide.

Don't forget that the potential for childbearing is pretty much limited to about ages 15-35 years old for the females in each age cohort. Fertility declines drastically after that. If you have a situation where the females basically aren't coming anywhere near replacing themselves (think Bologna, Italy, where the fertility rate has been under 1 --- more like 0.8 --- for 20 years), you have a pretty near irreversible problem.

As I said, no known society has ever recovered from this. I didn't do the calculations, anyway. Did you check the links?

[Tax-chick]

potential for childbearing is pretty much limited to about ages 15-35 years old for the females

Sigh. If I believed that, I'd have fourteen children when I reached 52.

Although it's not really relevant to population-wide reproductive outcomes, I believe that the "loss," as it were, of around 15 years of fertile time for women is almost entirely the result of lifestyle choices, not nature. In modern industrial societies, we're actually seeing a longer period between menarchy and menopause than has ever previously been observed. If most women can't have a child at 40, it's often because they spent the previous 25 years trashing their reproductive systems.

[Jack Black]

There is a big difference between raw intelligence, such as IQ tests measure, and education.

You can pour a lot of energy into trying to educate people with IQs of 75 and not achieve much. This is known among liberals as the mysterious “achievement gap”, which to them is completely mysterious.

Europeans started inhabiting Europe somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 years ago. Among other factors the ice age probably increased the intelligence of the proto-Europeans, by forcing them to find new ways to survive.

[Jack Black]

Whether the ability to have kids extends to 35 or 50 is a moot point, because woman who haven't had kids by 35 are unlikely to have theem after that age. (Sure, there is the occassaional exception.)

The facts outlined above remain: most European nations are not reproducing themselves.

Pat Buchanan wrote an excellent book on this a decade ago:

. (Funny, he includes Japan in his category of "the West".)

[Mrs. Don-o]

Exactly. Women who have spent 25 years blocking, sabotaging, and hormonally confusing their their sexual physiology, and then at age 40 change lanes and start into some panicky reproductive project, are likely to have as many kids as Unitarians have Divine Persons: zero, with gusts of up to one.

[Tax-chick]

You’re right; I was making a peripheral point. I’ve noticed among my acquaintances, though, that women who marry later than average (late 30s) having been chaste up to that point are often surprised at how quickly and easily they conceive. (Not my cousin who was 57, though ;-).

[Tax-chick]

You sure can turn a phrase!

[WorldviewDad]

Again, I did not start this conversation about the African Christians or IQ tests but I will respond.

I find it hard to believe that you state in one post that Christianity cannot make people more intelligent but then credit the ice age with increasing the intelligence of the “proto-Europeans”. Are you saying that God has no power to expand the mind of man but that “mother nature” does? This would seem to defy Scripture...

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

Proverbs 2:6 For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 15:33 The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor.

I could go on...

[Moltke]

I’m just thinking outside the demographic dogma/status quo box.

1. Very likely European peoples will be *forced* (do or die) to make some harsh adjustments. The 50 or so years of the social hammock we’re seeing now will be over soon. Boo hoo. Kicking a heroin habit must be hard, but some people manage.

2. There is no biological reason why women 20, 40 or 60 years down the road will not have 3, 5 or 10 kids. The motivation for that will be greatly enhanced when the encroaching muslim hordes have been kicked back to wherever they came from.

3. Retirement is a social construct that I think is historically recent. There is no biological reason that people do not work until they die or are supported within the family (3-4 generations living under one roof - like it was for centuries). Heck, my two senior partners are both older than 70 and still working every day (not for lack of funds!). They’ll die at their desks. But they love what they’re doing. Of course, this does not apply to all professions. Boo hoo.

4. Yes, the status quo is unsustainable. From that does *not* follow that the European peoples will simply disappear in 100 or 200 or ... years.

5. I don’t subscribe to doomsday scenarios (global warming, the new ice age, demographic meltdown, whatever someone comes up with to - more often than not - further their own profitable agenda...need I mention Al Gore?)

And a resounding YES to your first question! :-)

[Mrs. Don-o]

BTW, I didn't say it was impossible to turn around from a 1.3 fertility rate (Italy) when your median female age is 45.3 (Italy again). I just said it's unprecedented. It's never been done, ever, in the history of the world.

That's not dogma. That's evidence.

As I mentioned, I have no training or professional experience with demographic science. But if I don't know a lot, I suspect a lot, especially in the light of the above statistics. (While you're thinking outside the box, are you also thinking outside the facts? --- This is not a slam on you, believe me. I'm just wondering.)

It would be interesting if we had a little more evidence to discuss.

I'd love to think Europe could rebound, but the biggest obstacles, as I see it, are not economic or political, but spiritual. You've got people who have cashed out their whole inheritance because they no longer believe in the next life, let alone the next generation.

The kindergartens in London and Hamburg aren't, after all, empty. There's just few Edmunds and Annikas, and lots of Fareeds and Aaliyahs.

[Ronbo1948]

Yes, I see your point.

The USA becomes the Balkans.

Scary.

I’m glad I’m over 60 with a heart condition.

[Moltke]

First of all, to make sure we’re on the same page here, I took umbrage with the author’s quoted third party (the “expert”) statement in the article, not your’s.

Now then, as you agree, it’s not impossible to turn around from that 1.3 fertility rate - hence my “linear extrapolation” comment. (As an aside, there are some who believe that all of mankind has spawned literally from only one man and one woman - Adam and Eve. So it would only take one European man and woman to get things going again. Going by the author, impossible! But let’s not dwell on that.)

I do not know whether or not any society in the history of the world has rebounded from a 1.3 fertility rate - and I posit that neither does the author or anyone else. There’s only so much we know. Respectfully, I refute your claim of “evidence”. Any number of reasons have contributed to the demise of now-extinct civilizations. War, famine, invasion come to mind. I’m just saying that I do not see any mathematical or other reason why a turn-around of low birth rates should not happen. Indeed, such an outcome seems most likely to me. Things go down, things go up...

What I really need to stress here is that I’m not arguing along *moral* lines. Just what *is possible* in the realm of biology and physics, if you will. So what if the population of, say, Germany is halved in a couple of decades. There’ll still be 40 million people, millions of them young and fertile. The social problems they’ll have to deal with would be grave. But solvable, if not in a pretty way. (This might include any number of truly horrific scenarios - think Soylent Green and Logan’s Run.) Today’s norms of what is acceptable and what is not will go right out of the door. We’ve enjoyed a couple of truly luxurious decades - well, those times may be over soon, and things will go back to what they’ve been like for millenia. To wit, GOOD-BYE WELFARE STATE. Ho-hum. Not the end of a people as such.

Can we agree on that? (My argument from the beginning.)

[Ronbo1948]

In Berlin during the 1970s, the woman situation was bad for the German male 20 somethings too. A German friend of mine told that he was going to Thailand to get some “action.” Apparently he wasn’t the only one. So many Berlin bachelors wanted to R&R in Bangkok that once a week there was a direct flight from Berlin Tegel Airport to Bangkok filled with hot to trot young German males.

I told him that Bangkok was the R&R center for G.I.s during the Vietnam War. He replied, “Well from whom did you think we heard about Bangkok?”

[Mrs. Don-o]

The demographers are not talking certaintities (nothing is certain where the competing forces of human invention, stupidity, and choice are involved) but there are talking solid probabilities. Filipinos may perdure. Lithuanians, not so much.

Considering the generational warfare envisioned by the Soylent Green/Logan' War dystopias, it does make a kind of bitter sense that the two generations that aborted so many millions, would themselves be euthanized by the survivors.

[GAB-1955]

No offense was taken. Now, if I can make a comment about it, I would point out several things:

IQ is only one measure of intelligence, and one dealing with the solution of abstract problems. Peasants do badly on IQ tests because they don’t deal with abstract problems very well. They live in the concrete. I’ve seen it with Irish and German peasants in the last century. Remember when the Irish were stupid? Or Germans?

Given better education and soaking them in a culture with more abstracts, IQ scores go up.

[Moltke]

Yes, indeed. I hope things will never get that bad (again), but all those “probability” musings are idle conjecture to me (and I’ll stand by that). With a good dash of vested interests (”gimme the research grant”) added.

The human creature has proven to adapt itself to averse circumstances time and again. I do not see why a highly evolved culture (”the West”) - for all its shortcomings - should fail to do so in the next century. It is where most of the current knowledge and technology are concentrated, after all. Some adjustments to current behavior will have to be made.