While the BBC has focused on the projection that the world's population will reach seven billion by next week, I was struck by another alarming forecast; if current German fertility rates continue for the next two hundred years, its population will shrink by 98 percent. The projection comes from David Goldman's recent book "Why civilizations die".
How seriously should we take such a forecast? Would the fertility rate back in 1811 tell us anything about rates today? Goldman's forecast does tell us the logical consequences of current fertility rates. If they remain unchanged, a very big if, then Germany disappears in 200 hundred years. That is always a useful thing to know.
Germany's current fertility rate is below the level necessary to sustain its current population level. Moreover, it is hard to see how it could be reversed. The consequences of lower fertility will be severe. Germany is ageing rapidly, and has a welfare system that will either collapse or change radically.
Can anyone explain why Germany won't exist in 200 years? Or, to put the same question into different words, are there any reasons to think that German fertility rates will increase to at least 2.1 children per woman on a sustainable basis?
10 comments:
I think that the question of will Germany exist in 200 years and the question of whether Germany in 200 years will be populated by ethnic Germans are separate questions.
There's the same number of people in Greater London as there was in 1950 (7-8 million) but the demographic mix has changed.
The combination of continued immigration and existing ethnic minorities having a higher birth rate will mean than Germany will exist just not with the same demographic. Whether or not this matters is a political question.
There are a number of possible albeit "out there" game changes which could lead to fertility rate of 2.1 again-
(i) The desire to have and look after children is probably in part genetic - it is possible that parents in the future may be able to genetically select particular traits in their offspring including a trait to want to have children.
(ii) It is possible that in the future we could have artificial wombs in which test tube babies are incubated - this could increase the number of babies that older woman have.
(iii) There might be other medical advances which allow women to give birth into their 40s and 50s. At present there are no doubt a number of women of all ages that can't have children because they are infertile - medical advances may alleviate this.
(iv) I expect that Germany is like a lot of Western countries where there are women out there who want to have a baby but don't want to be a single parent and can't find a suitable husband. This is obviously a problem for educated women who also face a higher opportunity cost in terms of income if they have a baby - any social change over the next 200 years that changes this dynamic might result in more children. Not sure what that might be.
(v) at the moment in the West for a lot of people it takes two full time workers to live a middle class life-style. In Germany there are no doubt a some women who never have chilren or who have less than they want to because they feel that they can't afford it. If in the future there is an economic change meaning that women can afford not to work [revolutionary new energy source?] then some may decide to have more children.
200 years a long time.
my understanding is that the situation is even more extreme in Italy & Iberia
«The desire to have and look after children is probably in part genetic - it is possible that parents in the future may be able to genetically select particular traits in their offspring including a trait to want to have children.»
It is probably both genetic and memetic (cultural) already. What's happening is that women who for whatever reason don't have a strong desire to have children are choosing to become extinct. Only those who have a higher desire to have children will remain. It seems to me a classic prey/predator cycle.
«There are women out there who want to have a baby but don't want to be a single parent and can't find a suitable husband.»
Unlikely this is a major factor. Women who really want to have children will have them, and too bad for the sperm donor who gets involved.
«some women who never have chilren or who have less than they want to because they feel that they can't afford it»
That is a far more plausible factor in the "desire" to have children.
But I tend to agree with a related point made by The Economist some years ago, that children for women are now durable consumer good instead of investment capital.
Many women currently look at children as a hobby (luxury consumption), a hobby that takes time and money, and competes with other spending decisions.
Should she buy a better car or have a child? Well, can always have a child next year. Should she get a larger house or have a child? Well, a larger house will be nice for the child too, and she can have the child later. And so on.
But the key determinant is the "investment capital" angle.
Once upon a time women were utterly dependent on Male Parental Investment for raising children, and then they invested a lot in raising children because they were utterly dependent on the expectation that at least some of the children would support them in their old age, when the husband had died, and there was no alternative.
Currently most women know they can support themselves by working, and in their old age with the state and work related pensions both their own and their husband's (if any), and they think that they don't really need children to support them later.
That's why The Economist wrote that children in most first-world countries are now discretionary purchases and not necessary investments.
An interesting question, but perhaps a bit of a statistical connundrum. Natural selection. The average fertility rate is indeed very low. But some groups have larger than average fertility, and others ( I have read up to 25% in some countries ) choose to have no children at all. Evolution selects for those with the big families. They may belong to recent immigrant groups - though a recent Economist article tends to perhaps deny that a bit - and yet others belong to religious groups including fundamentalist Christians.
So I think in due course the children of larger families with stricter religious adherence will eventually be selected for and the population of Germany will again rise. The ability to plan family size is very new. It will probably work itself out of natural selection given current life expectancy by about the middle of this century - the pill being widely available only since the early 60's.
Religion is a major determinant of fertility. Believers have children, athiests can't be bothered.
Extrapolation of the future population is always fraught with error.
For example, calculate the future numbers of a population with a birthrate of 1.5 per couple.
Now calculate the future numbers of a population made up of one group with 3 children per couple and one group (of equal number) with zero children per couple. Makes an average birthrate of 1.5 per couple though...
Suddenly your extrapolation breaks.
Why is the German fertility rate so low ?
They can't get it up. That's why. It's a matter of elevation, you see.
They need to apply some good old german engineering to the problem.
The Four Spring Dick Technique.
(You have to be a certain age to get that joke.)
When it's written into welfare policy that women must work, and childcare is so hard to find and prohibitively expensive, this is bound to happen. NB: Good to see you back Alice!
The combination of continued immigration and existing ethnic minorities having a higher birth rate will mean than Germany will exist just not with the same demographic. Whether or not this matters is a political question.
I think its more an existential question. When its a designated victim group thats being genocided we are supposed to get upset. When its us we merely tut and move on to another 'political' question.
The desire to have and look after children is probably in part genetic
D'ya think so?
Priceless.
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