
Germany Fights Population Drop - soundsop
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/world/europe/germany-fights-population-drop.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
======
jobu
_" Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women
juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school
programs."_

In college I had a professor from East Germany that talked about this. The
communists did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they got right was an
impressive support system for working parents. The preschools and child care
programs were excellent, and women were encouraged to work instead of staying
home. After the wall fell, these support systems stopped, and his wife had to
quit her job and stay home to take care of their kids. He thought it was such
a waste of talent because his wife had a PHD and was also a college professor,
but there were few other options at the time.

~~~
cylinder
I think this is the biggest gap in western governments currently, and huge
productivity boosts could be had if they solve this problem. Especially in the
US.

It's incomprehensible that a parent should have to pay thousands per month
just to be able to have a child and work at the same time.

Paid maternal leave is not the big issue! After six months of leave, the
problem remains that a child needs to be looked after and cared for while the
mother returns to work.

~~~
tomp
> while the mother returns to work

But why?

I'm young and child-less, so I'm not speaking out of experience, but I really
see no reasons why we should be encouraging people to be able to _work while
having kids_. Instead, I think we should enable them to _not work and have
kids_. 50 years ago, it was more than possible to sustain a family with only a
single working parent. Nowadays, this doesn't seem even remotely possible
(hell, many families barely survive with 2 working parents!). Furthermore,
it's not like we're facing a shortage of workforce problems - we're facing
unemployment problems. If we could enable e.g. 30% of the workforce (hopefully
dads as well - I would love to stay at home instead of working) to stay at
home with kids instead, not only would that solve the unemployment issues, but
it would also be hugely beneficial for the children's development!

 _Edited to add:_ I actually come from a country where most adults worked even
50 years ago. However, when I was young, my grandmother was already retired,
so she was able to take care of me and my brother until we started school.
Still, I wish my parents had been able to spend more time with me when I was
little, and I wish I'll have that opportunity with my kids.

~~~
freehunter
I think it's considered healthy these days for children to spend time away
from their family in the care of others. It helps to develop a sense of
individuality and independence from the parents at a younger age. Plus, from
what I've heard, sometimes the parents and the children just need a break from
each other.

Yes, this can be done by taking the kid to a park or other social activities,
but two working parents is a perfectly acceptable option too. Daycare isn't
_un_ beneficial to a child.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
I have friends and family who work in primary education and they all say it's
immediately obvious which children have two working parents. The kids without
a full time homemaker have far more developmental problems.

~~~
sii
What? As a father of (soon to be) three children this sounds really odd to me.
My kids have always loved going to daycare and I've never heard of it causing
any developmental problems. On the contrary my own experience is that daycare
really accelerates kids development.

Most children in Sweden have two working parents and start daycare when they
are around a year old. Daycare in Sweden is considered part of the school
system and the teachers working there have (approximately) the same education
as 'regular' school teachers.

Edit: Also, as a related fact in this discussion, in Sweden children that are
behind in learning to speak (language development) can actually receive
special permission to spend _more_ time in daycare to help speed up their
language learning.

------
thejdude
German here. The initiative to provide a kindergarden for every child is quite
a failure. It was decreed by the federal govt that every city (i.e. local
govt) has to provide enough resources, but there simply aren't enough
kindergarden workers for that (and not enough money to get more people to do
that badly paid job).

As I see it, it was just an easy way to gain votes. It's easy to pass laws
that your own government doesn't have to apply, but _someone else_.

~~~
freehunter
Coming from the US, the idea that kindergarten is not required seems odd to
me. I was going to say that kindergarten is required here in the US, but I
thought I should double check that just to be sure. I was pretty surprised by
the results. Only 16 of the 50 states require kindergarten as part of the
mandatory (compulsory) education [1]. The state where I went to school doesn't
require kindergarten, but my very very poor family still sent me to school at
age 5.

So yeah, I guess we don't require kindergarten, but I've never encountered
anyone in the US who did not attend kindergarten. So it still sounds odd that
Germany doesn't have universal kindergarten zumal das Wort ist Deutsch.

[1]
[http://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/tab5_3.asp](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/tab5_3.asp)

~~~
thejdude
Funny that you say that, since the USA is a country where in many states even
school is not mandatory. Why should kindergarten be?

In Germany school is mandatory until you're 16 (if I'm not mistaken), but
kindergarten is completely optional. Most people - if they can afford it -
would send their kids there, though, because it gives them (the parents) more
time off, and it's good for the kids to spend some time with other kids.

There are public and private kindergartens here (same with schools), and for
the public ones the price depends on the parents' income. It seems that the
costs vary by county and by the number of kids you have (as an example I found
this page: [http://www.netmoms.de/magazin/kinder/kindergarten/kosten-
fue...](http://www.netmoms.de/magazin/kinder/kindergarten/kosten-fuer-den-
kindergarten/) ). Looks incredibly cheap (I'm honestly surprised), so maybe
it's time to plan for some offspring.

------
ThePhysicist
Right now Germany hugely profits from immigration out of other European and
overseas countries, bringing in more than 400.000 (net) immigrants in 2013
alone. The figure for 2014 will likely be even higher. If they can keep up
this trend it will be able to compensate (to a large degree) the decline of
the population caused by low birth rates. In fact, the 2008 demography report
of the government (which brought the demographic issue to a large public
awareness for the first time) ([http://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-
Verfassung/Dem...](http://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-
Verfassung/Demografie/Demografiebericht/demografiebericht_node.html))
calculated with a net immigration rate of 300.000 people in the most
optimistic case, so bringing in 400.000 people per year is really better than
anyone could hope. Of course some people will again complain that foreigner
will "steal their jobs", but the truth is that they might actually do great
service to the country, even if their rate of unemployment should be higher
than that of native Germans.

~~~
thejdude
Usually, immigration is good for the economy and for everyone who lives there.
Germany is pretty cheap country to live in (food is probably the best and
cheapest in Europe to come by, but salaries also are rather low, esp. compared
to the US), IMHO probably due to the many immigrants.

We also need more qualified workers, as everyday I see German dumbos who are
seriously unqualified for their job ;-)

But yes, if the day should come that German dumbos should be replaced with
skilled people from Spain, Turkey, or Greece, many people might end up very
pissed.

Edit: if you vote me down, maybe you'd like to elaborate on where our opinions
or observations differ?

------
Balgair
I'm currently mired in biology and I think an interesting point can be made.
We talk of 2 types of reproducers: R and K[0]. R is cockroaches; have just
thousands of babies. K is Blue Whales; have 1 or 2 and nurture the hell out of
them.

It seems that in the 1800s, we were more R type than we are today. We had lots
of children (though not thousands) and weren't all that concerned with
education, welfare, or health as to each one. At least in comparison to today.

Now, we seem to be much more K type. We take care of our children to an
incredible degree. Mortality is very anomalous in child birth, it is rare in
the 1st world to encounter an illiterate person, all but the true wackos get
vaccines, etc. As a consequence, it takes a lot of time and resources to raise
a child. Heck, we are even talking about the 20's being years of 'extended
adolescence'[1]. I don't know if this is a mistake of correlations and
causation, but they sure do seem linked.

[http://www.gapminder.org/](http://www.gapminder.org/)

Hans Rosling's TED talks are just so good here for extra material too.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory)

[1] [http://www.primermagazine.com/2013/live/wasting-
your-20s-wit...](http://www.primermagazine.com/2013/live/wasting-
your-20s-with-a-purpose-how-to-use-extended-adolescence-to-your-advantage)

------
VLM
"Yet, with hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs unfilled, some executives
believe"

I wonder if this is actually true or if its like the typical American sob
story of we can't get PHD's to work for minimum wage so we need to outsource.

~~~
pgeorgi
A bit of both. There is a certain shortage, but I hear that tune for 15 years
or so now (that is, across two tech booms and one bust).

The difference is in the objective: Our tech lobbyists (luckily quite
incompetent) would like to reduce the minimum mandatory wage for skilled
immigrant workers which exists to avoid pressure on locals.

As if even lower wages make working in Germany more attractive to skilled
labor that can choose between countries - including the US (where at least the
gross pay is noticeably higher for skilled jobs).

------
aianus
Hopefully the resulting labour crunch will encourage more automation.

~~~
jimktrains2
Worked in the Middle Ages after the Black Death.

Aside: I love the show Connections with James Burke and highly recommend it.
Many of the threads weaved in the show come start near this time period
because the labour crunch required machines otherwise there just wouldn't have
been enough labour to run the society left.

------
pacaro
Something that is rarely mentioned in these articles it's Germanys regressive
policy on dual citizenship (i.e. only permitted in rare circumstances) this
makes a country unattractive for long term immigration. While this may not be
such an issue for intra EU migration, it certainly seems to cause issues with
Turkish immigrants. It's a much bigger jump to naturalize if that means giving
up your previous citizenship

------
rikacomet
Aside from the main debate, I'm a bit surprised to not find visual
representation of the said data. No pie charts, flow charts or bar diagrams :/

In my opinion that is a very inefficient way to talk about demographics.

------
lkrubner
This is an editorial comment disguised as objective reporting:

"But bogged down with failed banks and dwindling budgets, few are in any
position to do anything about it."

The reasoning is something like "We can not save ourselves from collapse
because we are collapsing." This is not a serious line of reasoning. Whenever
people are faced with 2 problems, they need to make a decision about which
problem is more urgent. If you honestly feel that problem B is more important
than problem A, then you have a good reason to allow A to become worse so as
to do something about B.

I could make an analogy to heart disease: aspirin can help lower the risk of a
heart attack, but it has a risk itself: internal bleeding. Is aspirin worth
the risk? That is something to be decided by a doctor and the patient. One
needs to carefully weigh the risks of both decisions. One needs to examine all
of the circumstances. However, where the risk of heart attack is serious, then
the medical establishment is in agreement that it is better to take aspirin
than to run the risk of a heart attack.

Exactly the same reasoning should apply to Germany and the issue of
population. Which issue is more pressing, the issue of national debt, or the
issue of declining population? One can make an argument either way, however
Germany has a level of debt that is better than France, Italy, and many other
European nations:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_deb...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt)

More so, Germany's public debt is less of an issue than it seems because the
public is itself not highly indebted (as opposed to the public in the USA,
which carries immense private sector debts).

If you project Germany's debts 50 years in the future, the situation seems
bleak, because of rising retirement costs -- but that problem exists exactly
because of the low birth rate, so if it was possible to solve the low birth
rate, then the debts in 50 years would cease to be a problem.

The reality is, Germany has the financial resources to take some action
against the low birth rate, if it wanted to. While there are important issues
to be discussed, both pro and con, the financial arguments tend to be fake
arguments.

Germany is restrained in its actions because of the continuing cultural force
of "Kinder, Küche, Kirche". Aggressive action to raise the birth rate would
automatically mean a change in the private sphere of life. More so, it would
likely mean a revolution in the social status of women, and there are many in
Germany who are wary of changes in gender relations.

Between the years 1874 and 1899 my great grandmother gave birth to 16
children. My family lived on a farm in what was then the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. At that time, children as young as 5 were used for farmwork. A child
as young as 12 could bring in a surplus -- they were, in a sense, "profit
centers". Over the last 150 years children have transformed from units of
production to units of consumption. Raising a child is now very expensive, and
it is against the law for children to do any work that might offset their
cost. Because of that, people have cut back on the number of children they
have. Whereas my great grandmother had 16 children, most of my friends are
content to have 1 or 2 children. Nowadays, having 3 children seems like a
large family.

If Germany were serious about lifting the birth rate, it could take aggressive
action to mitigate the costs of raising children. I am sure each of us can
imagine some program that we think might work: free day care for children of
all ages, or a huge bonus at birth such as $100,000, or some method of feeding
children such that food is effectively free for children, and parents are
saved the cost.

The important thing is to imagine what aggressive action would really look
like. It would make some people flinch: their instinct would be that whatever
program you suggest, the program is "too expensive". But, to repeat the point
I made above, the financial arguments are nonsense. If you believe that
Germany faces crushing debts in the future because of rising retirement costs,
then raising the birth rate is the solution to Germany's financial problems.

But if you believe that the money simply doesn't exist, and that we are, in
2014, unable to do what my great grandmother did in the late 1800s, then the
entire narrative of the Industrial Revolution needs to be re-examined, because
you are suggesting that we are all poorer now than we were 120-140 years ago.
Ask yourself, do you honestly believe that today's technology has left us
poorer? Most economic historians would argue that, even with the reduction of
child labor, most families are better off today than they were 120-140 years
ago. If you assume that more per-capita wealth exists in the world now than
circa 1880, then it should be possible to pay families for the cost of raising
3 or 4 children.

~~~
JeffL
We are not poorer now, but as you pointed out, children have gone from being
profitable to being a burden, so no matter how much money we may have, there
is less incentive to have children.

I'm also thinking that back in the day, your children were your retirement
plan, so better have enough of them to make sure you will be taken care of.
But now that the state is our retirement plan, even less reason to have kids.

~~~
lkrubner
Do you honestly feel that, in the entire nation of Germany, there are no
families that are constrained primarily by money, when considering how many
children to have? Given the way population tends to accumulate over time, you
only need to convince 15% of those women who have already given birth to have
1 extra child, to raise Germany's birth rate back up to the replacement level.
The question then is, are there those families who might like to have another
child, if the cost was less of a burden? To borrow a phrase from economics,
such policies seek to influence those families "at the margin", that is, those
families that are considering having another child, and for whom some extra
subsidy might be exactly what is needed to influence their decision in a
positive direction. As in sales, there is no need to go after those who would
never buy your product. There is no need to go after those women who are happy
to be childless. The focus of pro-natalist policies is always to influence
those who are open to the idea and who can be persuaded with some form of
help.

~~~
thejdude
Children have always been expensive, haven't they? But I think that's more of
a cultural issue - people prefer consumption to investing in raising kids.

And working children don't usually bring in lots of money, but back in the day
they would care for their elderly parents, which was a good reason to have
kids.

I think it's not mainly about money (why do Germany's academics have the
fewest children?), but about creating a children-friendly climate and a
culture where raising children is considered a good thing and not just a
burden that keeps you from consuming. Children and modern consumer culture -
bad fit.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
> _I think it 's not mainly about money (why do Germany's academics have the
> fewest children?), but about creating a children-friendly climate and a
> culture where raising children is considered a good thing and not just a
> burden that keeps you from consuming._

This is so interesting; I was thinking about this exact problem (consumerism
vs. child rearing) the other day after noticing some anti-child undertones on
Reddit. Some themes I saw were workplace discrimination toward women in their
20's ("Why should I have to pay to train a female employee when she's highly
likely to get pregnant and leave? I'd rather just hire a male."), shaming
parents experiencing financial hardship ("It doesn't matter if you got cancer;
you should have accumulated more savings before deciding to have kids!"), and
an overall positive view of a child-free lifestyle ("All of our friends with
kids are poor now -- I'm happy without kids so I can buy whatever games and
gadgets I want.").

I just find it weird that people can forego such a defining element of any
life form (reproduction) for the sake of consuming more "things". To take it
to the extreme, could consumerism lead to the end of the human race?

~~~
thejdude
Well, on one point I do agree: you should have your life/finances sorted out
(meaning: positive cash flow, enough to raise kids) before you have kids.
Everything else is just irresponsible.

Generally, it's a personal decision. However, consumer people might well
remove themselves from the gene pool this way. The problem is that their
culture is everywhere, and all kids catch that virus in school ("mom/dad,
Timmy has a PS4, when do we get one?", "I also need to collect all Pokemon, or
I'm not cool.") and want to grow up to be models/popstars/celebs or other
meaningless things. Here's hoping my (future) kids will grow out of that phase
quickly.

------
novalis78
I think at this point it is pretty clear that the dramatic population decline
in Europe (started late 20th century but has accelerated since the 60s) is not
something that can be solved by money nor does it seem to have to do with life
style choices (the first and second world war did not do much to change the
overall trend[1]).

One fascinating book I read a couple of years ago compared Western European
nations with each other vs the "European counterparts that settled America",
i.e. the Caucasians in North America. It's interesting that in this particular
comparison America (main difference: less social welfare, more individualism,
more religion) still has the _highest_ of all ethnic Caucasian birthrates
approx. 2.4 [2]

One economist's work that is very interesting to follow on this topic is
Gunnar Heinsohn[3] who publishes his findings in intriguing essays usually
backed by a lot of statistics and numbers.

But back to the article: the whole topic raises a couple of important
fundamental questions: What do you mean by "Germany's" birth rate plummeting?
The population overall, of course, has been steady for the most part and was
recently admitted publicly by the ministry of federal statistics (a few years
back) [4] Germany itself will be a majority Muslim country by 2050. So the
population itself will probably not change or not much, it will rather turn
into a different cultural entity, one with a small and shrinking "original"
ethnic group (similar to the Japanese, for instance) but being replaced by a
(mainly) Turkish/Middle Eastern cultural group that will incorporate their own
beliefs and traditions into the aging German society and probably eventually
dominate it (it is, after all, just a number's game). It's also not really a
workforce problem as the article alluded - some here have already pointed out
increases in productivity and automation that might offset these issues. The
whole notion of population decline is inherently a cultural/ethnic question
IMHO - even if a desire to shrink the population to improve the quality of
life is your goal and immigrant birth rates fall over time: the fact of the
matter remains this that you might be looking at a new "Voelkerwanderung" and
all that comes with it.

Personal anecdote: I used to work for an IT company in Germany about 10 years
ago - I had roughly 40 co-workers in an age-range of 20 to 40 (I was 25 at
that time). I was the only one with 2 kids - nobody else had kids! Zero. My
colleges had dogs, cars, expensive vacations and lived for the most part in
those parts of town that shielded them nicely from the mass immigration taking
place in what they called "(immigrant) ghettos". The life style benefits were
non-negotiable for most of them but left not much for kids either (taxation is
tough if you have to fund healthcare and mass immigration :-). The girls were
brought up to loathe the idea of being a mother (and all the single mothers at
the edge of society were an effective warning sign). So they were all headed
for their careers, making it near impossible to have their first child before
the age of 30-35. Not much time left after that. The climate in the bigger
German cities that attract all those young and bright Germans looking for work
is quite detrimental to raising children as well: very often our experience
was that kids were seen as nuisance (in the US we had quite the opposite
experience which might be one reason for the difference in birth rates - the
US provides (in many emotional daily interactions) a way more supportive place
to raise children than Western Europe).

At this point, sadly, it seems to me that population growth is linked to (a
lack of) education and / or religious indoctrination. It does not seem to make
much of a difference when some European countries pump millions into their
social projects to support families (Sweden, France) or when they do not
(Germany, Britain) - the birth rate decline is almost the same for all of
these countries (again, I am talking native population, not immigrants) [5].

Conclusion: Religion might be one(?) way that natural selection ensures a
population's continued growth - I like to be proven wrong, but I can't think
of a nation where the growth rate is high and Atheism and Enlightenment reigns
the day. A positive outcome would be a gently declining population overall on
planet Earth that becomes supported by automation and a growing population on
Mars while leaving violent fanaticism in the past...

\--- [1] [http://www.trykkefrihed.dk/interview-a-continent-of-
losers.h...](http://www.trykkefrihed.dk/interview-a-continent-of-losers.htm)
(could not find a better one, but there are numerous essays describing his
theory of "youth bulge" on the web [2] [http://www.pop.org/content/fertility-
decline-in-western-euro...](http://www.pop.org/content/fertility-decline-in-
western-europe-1727) [3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_Heinsohn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_Heinsohn)
[4] [http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/german-population-plunge-
ir...](http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/german-population-plunge-irreversible-
federal-stats-office-admits) [5] [http://www.pewforum.org/files/2012/07/MDII-
graphics-webready...](http://www.pewforum.org/files/2012/07/MDII-graphics-
webready-90.png)

------
a8da6b0c91d
> “If you look closely at the numbers, what you see is the higher the gender
> equality, the higher the birthrate,”

I think that's exactly backwards. Afghanistan has the highest birthrate. The
less gender equality, the higher the birthrate. You get astronomical
birthrates in the Hasidim and Islamic parts of Africa where women hold a
subservient place to their husbands and have a constrained gender role. The
Nazis had some success raising the birthrate by promoting and elevating stay-
at-home motherhood, not by promoting equality.

I think there's a strong case to be made that banning women from colleges and
professions would dramatically raise the birthrate. I'm not advocating this,
I'm just saying it's what the data suggests. The more professional status is
available to women the less they reproduce. This is very clear all over the
world across cultures.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Nah, you can fix the sentence by adding what was unspoken but assumed:

> "If you look closely at the numbers, what you see is that in developed
> countries, the higher the gender equality, the higher the birthrate,”

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
It's so obviously not true between developed countries and across time. The
more traditional the gender roles (opposite of "equality") the higher the
birth rate. I would have to see the data before I even believed the claim that
within an industrialized nation more "equal" couples have more kids. I highly
doubt it.

------
funthree
Lets be honest.. the multi-cultural society brought on by leftists and
feminists and foreigners leads people to give up on the future of their
culture. These people don't want families with non-Germans and they don't want
Germany to be non-German, but they are occupied by foreign cultures and they
can't do anything to change it.

edit: Every German will upvote this comment

~~~
akr
> Every German will upvote this comment

Please stop generalizing people using their nationality.

I am a German and I certainly do not agree with your views.

~~~
funthree
Generalizing is what demographers do. Generalizing based on nationality is not
wrong. You are an outlier.

~~~
kuschku
And here on this computer are 4 Germans sitting who also do NOT agree with
your opinion – stop saying this xenophobic bullshit.

~~~
funthree
I am generalizing for the people who don't have families because they see
Germany being handed over to foreigners in the future. You do not agree with
my opinion? That is fine.

But it is not xenophobic to say that people want to keep German families
German. Did you know that China has less than a million immigrants in the
entire country? Maybe it is time you respect your people, too. Your group of 4
sounds like some xenophile party.

With this article we have the sexual relations of Germans strewn about and we
are expected to just sit back and let the whole world morph the demographics
of a nation they aren't a part of. I don't agree with it.

------
epx
Society needs fresh blood to work, pay taxes, pay our retirement pensions, but
the bill is still stuck upon the individuals that choose to have children.
Only crazy people have children nowadays.

~~~
hnal943
Do you think people choose to have kids out of obligation to "Society?"

~~~
TulliusCicero
Most don't, obviously. He's still right, though: kids financially benefit the
wider society, but most of the initial costs are borne by the individual
parents. And since statistically speaking, having kids doesn't make you any
happier (and at least temporarily makes you less happy), having kids does seem
rather irrational on its face.

------
Htsthbjig
"in about fifty years Germanys population will fall by about twenty percent"

Wow, in 50 years robots will do most of the work. They will drive our cars and
clean our houses. They are starting doing it.

In fact 50 years is so much time we could had done great breakthroughs like
the discovery of nuclear fusion, or the manipulation of DNA so we remain young
forever(and most people will not die from age).

I am more worried about what will happen THIS YEAR if Germany continues
supporting USA invasion of Ukraine and Russia closes the gas key.

