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TechnoratiThe empty European village
Do countries with sub-replacement fertility need more government support, or less?
"It Takes a Village to Raise a Child," was Hillary Clinton’s Big Idea in the 1990s. Hillary’s supporters and detractors alike regard that slogan as a thinly-veiled code for increasing the government’s responsibility for the care of children. The demographic decline of Europe illustrates what would happen if we took this Village-Raising-Children image seriously.
The State Village takes over a substantial portion of the economic responsibility for the family, regardless of the marital status of parents. As state support becomes more significant, the mutual support of family members becomes less important. Parents no longer feel the need to marry each other, or even cooperate with each other. The state replaces the married couple as the primary support for children. And as a not-so-unintended consequence, state-funded child-care frees women from child-care responsibilities inside the home so they can work outside the home.
Welfare state advocates on both sides of the pond are quick to point out the benefits of state support. But let’s look at the cost side of the equation.
A recent report by the family-friendly Madrid-based Institute for Family Policies reports the broad European demographic trends. The number of marriages has dropped precipitously since 1980. The percentage of children born outside marriage has increased to one third. More children are born outside of marriage than inside marriages in Estonia, Sweden, Bulgaria and France. Divorce rates have soared.
The birth rate in the 25 countries of the European Union is now 1.56 live births per female, while in the US the birth rate is 2.09, right around the replacement fertility rate of 2.1. Some countries are at critically low levels: Slovakia, Poland, and Romania have birth rates less than 1.3, with Germany at 1.32. In the absence of immigration, the population of these countries will drop in half approximately every generation.
The fall in marriage and fertility may seem like abstract numbers on the chalk-board. So let’s take a look at the human face of these demographic trends. Even with government support, raising a child alone is a daunting prospect. Women who would want three children if married, are understandably reluctant to try to care for more than one child on their own. When a woman believes her marriage may not last, she will, quite reasonably, want to establish herself professionally before having children. Instead of being married to her child’s father, a woman in a divorce-prone culture is married to a combination of the market and the state.
The average woman’s age at first marriage has increased from 23 in 1980 to almost 29 in 2005. Not all those women are living celibate lives. Some are sexually active in situations that can not possibly support a pregnancy. Nearly one out of every five pregnancies ends in abortion, making it the leading cause of death in the European Union. The number of abortions across Europe each year equals the entire population of Slovenia.
One out of every four European household is a lone individual. Two out of three households have no children. Half of European children have no siblings. So much for the Fraternity part of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
Unfortunately, the Institute for Family Policies recommends more of the same, failed welfare state policies. Steve Mosher, president of the US-based Population Research Institute, has a different approach. "Not one of the schemes adopted by the European countries has succeeded in recovering the birth rate to replacement. Why?" he asks rhetorically in his new book, Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits.
"Statist solutions will not solve the problem of the empty cradle, for it is the modern welfare state itself that relentlessly suppresses fertility. By its very existence, it discourages the formation of the very kind of strong, independent families that are necessary for robust fertility by fracturing the intergenerational dependency of the family, by adopting "gender-neutral" policies that undermine the complementarity that is at the heart of successful marriage, by providing abortion on demand, by mandating sex education for children, by pushing state-funded contraception schemes on teenagers and young adults, and above all, by high tax rates."
I think Mosher is correct. The statist Village has sucked the life out of marriage, which just happens to be the one self-sustaining institution that can oppose the pretensions of the state to control all of social life.
The European experience demonstrates that the Village needs the family far more than the family needs the Village.
Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD is the Senior Research Fellow in Economics at the Acton Institute, and the author of Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village, newly reissued in paperback.
David,
Those kind words were reserved for the case where you are not “open to the possibility that the other point of view might have merit to it”.
Apparently you’re open and not a fool.
Well then, we definitely agree on the western civ part.
I’ve never met anyone over the age of five who discriminated based on skin color. Discriminating on skin color alone is definitely a problem.
However, Brussels Journal does not discriminate on skin color. The people they rightfully discriminate against (as you did) happen to be a different color. Except for perhaps Albanians, who are white.
However, you didn’t reply to my post. Brussels Journal was just a reference.
Chris said: “Are you open to the possibility that the other point of view might have merit to it? If you’re not, then you’re not very bright, and a complete waste of time.”
Thank you, Chris, for the kind words. If you read my posts you would know that I consider Western Civilization to be far superior to other civilizations. When I lived in London in the early ‘seventies I thought the English mad because they allowed in immigrants who were obviously not committed to Western ideas of democracy and equality. But I also found that, for many, protecting English culture became a code for protecting racial purity. For groups like the National Front in England the thing they really objected to was dark skin. They have no culture to defend. They’re street thugs. They are the same as the fascist gangs that Oswald Mosly led who terrorized Jewish neighborhoods in East London in the ‘thirties. And their rhetoric was the same,as well.
David, the point of these arguments is to demonstrate that a great civilization is in danger, namely from suicide.
I wrote some what I think are reasonable questions and points in my post but you ignore them.
If a “white supremacist” is someone who advocates the superiority of (albeit blemished) western civilization above all others and the danger posed to it by other “civilizations” then Brussels Journal is “white supremacist”.
How does that discredit their arguments?
How much have you read of what they write?
Did you just glance and see something that does not fit your leftist ideology and ignore what BJ is trying to point out?
How about you address the points and questions in my post that you referred to?
Again, you are incapable of even considering what it is that conservatives have to say.
Until you are open to the possibility that the other point of view might have merit to it there is no point in further discussion.
I am definitely open to the above and stand with leftists on a number of issues, fundie Baptist that I am.
Are you open to the possibility that the other point of view might have merit to it?
If you’re not, then you’re not very bright, and a complete waste of time.
Chris, do you think you can win an argument by directing people to a white supremacist site?
Angela, I presume that your comment ‘go the greens’ refered to the Irish green and not the antenatal, nature worshipers like our own dear Bob from the apple isle.
G. K. Chesterton wrote on this in June of 1915, warning that as individual nations Europeans needed “something to defend, and something that is worth defending.” Losing that, he continued, “would mean the slow drying-up of all the fountains of our courage. For we are not fighting for something before us, but for something behind us; not for Europe, but for home.”
Europe is dying because Europeans have lost their belief that there is anything worth defending, least of all their homes or their national cultures. Germans have few children because they see nothing in being German that matters, nothing worth teaching to the children they never have. In January of 1918, Chesterton would point out that the problem particularly afflicted liberals, as demonstrated by their inability to stand up against the terrorism of that day:
“We are still confronted with the crucial question, which can be stated simply enough. It is whether Prussia, if she fails to conquer by a service of brave men, will be able to conquer by a service of cowards? Having always preached terrorism, she is now simply preaching terror; and the title given to it is that of an early peace. Some are so waggish as to add the description of a just and lasting peace. But they appear to be perfectly indifferent, when their views are analysed, to the equity of the peace; and not particularly concerned even about its permanence. Their feeling, being a mere effect of fatigue, is necessarily irrational. They do not really care who imposes the peace, so long as they can accept it; nor even how long it lasts, so long as it lasts their time. To provide this brute reaction with exquisitely packed phrases and verbal adumbrations is now the special function of the Nation, once famous as a fine organ of Liberal ideals, but now made the instrument of a mere craving and crying for truce.”
--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II
Judging by some of the comments posted on this site, some people are a bit ignorant of history.You don’t have to be a demographic expert to see that a decline in population usually means a cultural decline and someone else coming into the breach- that is what happened to the Roman empire.And of course it was also a victim of unwieldy bureacracy.
Of course the people of Africa Asia and the middle east will end up ‘filling the gaps’ in Europe’s population - who else will do all the work? Especially with ever more generous pension and retirement schemes.
As for european culture, the essence of culture is a way of life where cultural and religious traditions which come from a well spring of strong belief are practiced and ever renewed. One sees that in Asia and the middle east. But frankly as an antipodean who travels to Europe frequently, it seems to me that ageing europe is stagnating. In many countries the old rural peasant world has become a sort of haven of quaintness a theme park for foreigners who buy property ( at least it seems so in northern italy) while immigrant problems fester away in the horrible housing projects of the large industrial centres - as illustrated by the riots in france. But I am glad the irish, who have a youthful well educated population seem to be the exception.The referendum proved that.Go the greens!
John Thomas said… “A few decades ago, they used similar ideas about Northern Ireland - because Catholics (who were Republicans) breed more than Protestants...”
John it not just about birthrates of muslims going up, although this is a key component. Its also about increased immigration from non-western countries, and western birth rates going south. Three components that will greatly impact on the future of Europe. Read Mark Steyn’s book, “America Alone” for what lies ahead.
To David Page,
What is WRONG with NOT wanting (non-western) immigrants?
What God or other absolute authority has decreed that this is wrong?
Is it that it is against your leftist “values”?
Tough luck.
That doesn’t make it wrong.
Unless you have a firm foundation for your beliefs and world view (such as Christians do) your values are nothing but vapor.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to preserve one’s culture and western culture is worth preserving and if you don’t believe western culture is in decline (particularly in Europe) then it’s time to open your eyes. Unless of course you’re too closed minded to even consider the possibility that conservatives are right in this regard at least.
Start here:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com
More children = more prosperity for society in general, within reason, of course.
Isn’t the problem described here to do with the fact that European population is decreasing?
Wouldn’t having two or more kids solve this issue?
Did it occur to you that when conservatives suggest people should be having more kids they don’t mean five or six?
That should not be too hard for you to understand.
Unfortunately, you are blinded by your leftist beliefs and are incapable of even considering what it is that conservatives have to say.
Until you are open to the possibility that the other point of view might have merit to it there is no point in further discussion.
Immigration to Europe will solve the declining population problem?
Yes, that’s just what Europe needs. More foreigners.
Those non-westerners will surely uphold western civilization.
Might I suggest the following site?
http://www.brusselsjournal.com
How is European culture in decline? The birthrate is tied to the level of prosperity. The richer the population the fewer children they have. Even in the same country rich people have fewer children than poor people. The people who post here can’t possibly believe we should all be poorer. In the West the problem is softened by immigration but many ‘conservatives’ object to that. I can guess why.
Angela,
Our reality is, that the state and social security is eating away directly appr. 40% of a typical family’s income. When you include indirect taxes taken away reaches appr. 65%.
This explains, why the average family father cannot support his family and why couples refuse a third child. (You almost don’t find middle age families with three or more children here anymore).
A lot of people are not having children because they think they would be better of working as slaves for their pension.
And where is all the money going to? Answer: firstly to age-related social security like pensions (remember people having retired in the 80’s and 90’s received and are receiving luxury pensions here), elderly-care, subsidies to health insurance, and secondly to state bureaucracy.
Will big Government save our future? Of course, not!
Due to our demographics, the only question is, what would bankcrupt first, the government or the social security system. Expect that to happen in 30 years, when baby boomers are in their 70’s.
The reason is that the best, cheapest, most reliable and safest system to fund for age related liabilities is to raise and educate children. If a society chooses istead to build up capital reserves, the amount of money necessary is enormous. And to earn real interest on that capital is risky, as a lot of German banks, who invested billions and billions in US-mortgage refinancing, now find out.
There is a vicious cycle at work. My personal opinion therefore is: for us families here in Germany, it would, although that sounds drastic, be better in the long run, if the system would go through bancruptcy the earlier. Our almost religous belief in the government, in it’s pension promises and in our private insurances is stupid and heresy. As of now, looking at the resistance to change, this seems unavoidable.
The argument that state assistance is taking the place of the family is a rather ruthless american neo conservative one which just is not true.It suits the agenda of a state where ordinary working families ( to use kevin rudd’s favourite phrase) can’t even be sure thay they won’t have to sell the house if they have a catastrophic illness.
The family isn’t being replaced by the state in Europe , although family breakdown and lack of family formation means that more and more children have become dependent on it . This shows up even the US where a majority of black children are born ex nuptially resulting in pockets of deprivation
The reason that the US has a replacemnt birth rate is not because of the state’s lack of interference ,or assisitance to families, but rather on accout of one single factor- Mexicans .Mexican Americans have one of the highest total fertility rates in the world. It is over 3.
It is also true that the Moslem immigrant birthrate outstrips the native born birthrate in Europe and elswhere . In australia moslems have four times the TFR of any other australian group and interestingly it is just as high for native born moslems as immigrants.
In short the reason for low birthratees is cultural and factors like religion are also very important.Europe’s culture is in decline , hence their low birthrates , the US and Australia are an immigrant cultures, with much more scope for self renewal.
As for family size, one deosn’t have to have a mega family to replace the current population . An average of three children per family is enough. If all the people who aim to have two had three we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Women have little interest in the role of wife and mother these days. They are MUCH to busy “having it all.” Of course men are attracted to these “uber” women like flies to vinegar. The higher women’s education level, the lower their fertility. You do the math.
Turns out women aren’t ENTITLED to husbands who give a crap about them, after all. Oh, well. So sad.
Can you say “demographic implosion”? I thought you could. ...
Richard Duprey (US, 8 June) repeats the popular idea that Muslims will, in the demographic sense, “fill the void” in Europe (and this is often suggested); however, it may not be quite like this. A few decades ago, they used similar ideas about Northern Ireland - because Catholics (who were Republicans) breed more than Protestants, in the course of time, Northern Ireland will just naturally become Catholic and Republican - but this is to assume that the present way of things will continue, as it is, indefinitely ... but they might not. Perhaps future Northern Irish people will care less about the religious/political affiliations of their forebears. Perhaps future generation of Muslims will not want to breed as much as present ones do (and perhaps the kind of Islam that we now see (militant, expansionist) will lose its appeal for later generations). So projecting present trends into the future might just be misleading. The future never quite takes the form we expect ...
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