Posted on 06/17/2011 11:46:27 AM PDT by 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
Difficult to believe that. And as long as the most popular name for newborn baby boys in Europe is "Mohammed" I'd argue they still have a very significant problem.
Let’s hope that some of the migrants are good people like the Poles, who have been spreading to places like Britain.
you two should both nailed that one fast!!!
...i’d sure like to see the exact numbers, of muslims and non-muslims.
it says: “In all but four countries of the EU (Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta and Portugal), fertility rates increased between 2000 and 2008.” yet, it says the rates are still all BELOW 1.5 so the “increase” is very slight.
and if this is true:
“Nowadays, 1 in 5 babies in Europe has a mother who was born abroad.”
then almost ALL the increase must be from Muslim immigration. yet they state the exact opposite?
...and we know the truth is as katana stated.
soon the name “mohammad” will be as common in Europe, as it is in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan...
this is from 2 fairly reputable British papers:
Muslim population ‘rising 10 times faster than rest of society’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5621482.ece
“The population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, the research by the Office for National Statistics reveals.
In the same period the number of Christians in the country fell by more than 2 million. “
Will Britain one day be Muslim?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-452815/Will-Britain-day-Muslim.html
Just watch “Demographic Winter.”
http://fi.cross.tv/30550
When society becomes prosperous they have fewer children.
Bunk. I'm in Europe all the time. Central Paris looks like Africa - both Central and Northern. Certain suburbs are heavily Arab. The only places not like this are in the countryside.
The only countries not like that in Europe are former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries - Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltics mainly (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia). There's no political correctness in those countries; intensely nationalistic, they're righteous about their land.
Whatta concept.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. The men who bombed the public transportation in London were English: legal British subjects, born in England, English-speaking, attended English schools. The “youths” who keep burning cars in France are French, as their legal nationality: second- or third-generation French-born citizens.
Sort the births by the ethnicity of the parents’ surnames, and we’d learn something useful ... only we already know it.
And they have death-spiral birthrates, all of them. It's not like those are terrific places, just based on geography, especially with Global Warming's being a crock. Maybe when the current ethnic groups die out, it will just be vacant land, except for what the Chinese take in Siberia and the Turks in the Black Sea area.
An outright lie; who are you going to believe, the article or your lying eyes?
This same demographic scenario is playing out right here in the US, and is being downplayed (if not outright ignored). Anybody walking past a playground here in northern NJ can’t miss the fact that in towns that are officially 90% “white”, 2/3 of the children (and the accompanying parents) aren’t. I think they’ve been using 1980 stats for decades at this point.
Even more telling: maternity wards. 2 white babies, 2 black babies, and 10 Hispanic babies. These aren’t junior “guest workers”; they’re here to stay (and automatically citizens). It really will be interesting to see what this means; in NYC a few years ago it meant “gay marriage” didn’t even make it to a vote.
“When society becomes prosperous they have fewer children.”
When society becomes secular & materialistic they have fewer children. Saudis are prosperous, and Osama Bin Laden had 50 siblings.
Isn’t Poland also non-PC about muzzie invasive migration?
IIRC, Polish immigrants to the U.K. are providing a welcome hardworking Christian western counterpresence to the muzzie disease.
Maybe Poles everywhere still remember how Jan Sobieski saved Europe from the muzzie hordes in 1683. Time to be great again, Polish people!
excellent excellent point!!!
...that would certainly show even more difference between traditional europeans and muslims...
...and with personal reports like Regulator confirming this, i am sadly starting to believe Mark Steyn was an optimist...
The amazing thing is how many people forecast this even prior to WWII (and not just Nazis). When people refer to the post-WWII drop in births, they ignore the fact that in some countries (France in particular) the birthrate had already dropped, and was basically the given reason for the rapid collpase in 1940.
Welll...that's changing.
Russian women are still a) mostly very attractive, and b) a lot more religious then Russian males. Orthodox Christianity is making a comeback even though the government still wants to control it (some things never change in Russia). So Russian women want to have children and raise them in their church. I know enough of them to believe this; I even know Russian Evangelicals. Once the two decade long party known as "Thank God Communism is OVER!" gets over (and it's dying down now), they'll get back to making Russian babies and trying to resurrect their society after the 70 year disaster.
Belarus...very different because they still have Lukashenko, haven't let go of the past. But eventually that won't matter...all around them the world will change, and even he won't be able to do anything about it.
Ukraine wants to be part of the West, but unfortunately the ethnic Russians have a hard time with that. But the Mommies want good stuff for their babies and they won't give a damn what the nostalgics think, I know a number of them and they love kids and being Mothers, they will not be stopped by retro Bolshevikii. Religious people too.
The Baltics? They are not part of the Russian East and no Tsar was ever able to make them. Once the Russian army was gone they bolted politically and spiritually right back to being the Northern Europeans they are. Don't worry, they like themselves and their kids, they'll be back. My Estonian stepgrandmother told me so!
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