HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
June 1, 2006 Pick your euphemism: people are busy, but not getting busy; the stork isn’t getting many calls these days; there a fewer buns in our collective ovens. However you put it, we simply aren’t having as many children as we used to. From Australia to Japan, Germany to Russia, birthrates are declining, and some at alarming rates. Russia is having 1.17 children per woman, down from about 2 per woman in 1990. France and Italy, currently 20th and 22nd on the list of most populous countries, are not projected to be in the top 28 by 2050. In 1950, Italy was 10th and France 11th. (Source: UN World Population Prospects, 2004 revision.) Some countries are finally waking up to the crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin is offering 250,000 rubles (about $9200) to women who have a second child. In Portugal, the government of Jose Socrates is proposing a lower tax rate on pensions for couples with more than two children. So, what caused the drop in fertility? One culprit is the move from a rural, agricultural society to one that is urban and industrial. In 1900, it made sense to have a Brady Bunch family: more kids meant more labor for the farm and more hands to care for the parents when they got older. In today’s world with welfare and Social Security, having six extra mouths to feed is an unnecessary burden (even if there is an Alice on hand to do the cooking). Indeed, the cost of raising a child to age 17, estimated to be well over $100,000 in the United States, is bordering on prohibitive for many couples. And that’s before the $30,000 college tuition bill hits the mailbox. The cultural revolution of the 60’s and 70’s is also to blame. Abortion on demand aside, one can’t discount the impact of the radical feminist agenda: shed the apron, avoid the “slavery” of marriage, and climb that corporate ladder. Encouraging women to choose the boardroom over the bedroom, and belittling those who don’t opt for the former, has its unintended consequences. During the same period, the growth of the welfare state, especially in Europe, rendered support from one’s children a moot point in the silver years. Once people got a taste of the good life – two incomes, travel, and retirement at 55 – children became a lifestyle sacrifice that many couples are unwilling to make. In Europe, however, they will soon have to pay the piper. Welfare programs, Ponzi schemes by nature, depend on more incoming workers to support the retirees. The declining birthrates, combined with longer lifespans, leave European countries with three painful choices: cut benefits, increase taxes, or promote immigration to fill the gap. The first is very unlikely, although reformers like Angela Merkel in Germany are at least starting to broach the topic. However, one only has to look at the regular, crippling strikes in France to see what happens when a government tries to rein in what it has so lavishly handed out over the years. (Taking to the streets to protest some attempt at labor or welfare reform is almost a rite of passage for French students.) As for the tax route, Europeans are already taxed to the gills. With economic growth stagnant and unemployment hovering around 10% in the major economies, higher taxes are not the answer. Which leaves the option of “importing” more population, for years a perfectly acceptable solution among the enlightened and tolerant intelligentsia of Europe. But with many of the immigrants coming from the Middle East and Africa, Europeans are starting to find that immigration without assimilation wasn’t such a hot idea. The murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim extremist in the Netherlands was a wakeup call for a nation with nearly 1 million immigrants among its population of 16 million. The cartoon fiasco from early this year was a similar jolt for Denmark: incensed by a Danish newspaper’s portrayal of Allah and his prophet Mohammed as homicidal bombers, Muslim extremists threatened to bomb Danish interests (ironically, of course, in the name of Allah and his prophet Mohammed). Both Denmark and the Netherlands are readdressing their immigration policies. And, as church pews remain empty across Europe, Italy wrestles with the plan to build its largest mosque in the heart of Tuscany. Unfettered by the trappings of the industrial welfare state, developing nations continue to experience population booms. Bangladesh is expected to grow from 142 million to 243 million by 2050, and the Democratic Republic of Congo from 58 million to 177 million in the same period. Perhaps the stork is still busy, but only in places like Dhaka or Kinshasa. But in the industrialized world, we have created a cushy and somewhat self-centered life for ourselves – one that does not seem to agree with having multiple children. And while it remains to be seen if the programs like those in Russia and Portugal will bear any fruit, the demographic road ahead is a perilous one indeed. ------------ About Matthew Bastian: Recovering socialst, part-time drummer, long-suffering Brewers fan, and all-around beach hound, Mr. Bastian lives in central New Jersey. Email Matthew Bastian: mbastian19@hotmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
