Europe’s empty cradles

Not a single EU nation is producing enough children to sustain its population, and many are heading toward population collapse. Some experts now believe that the very survival of European civilization is at stake.On a recent visit to Italy, our six-month-old boy proved a big hit, drawing expressions of kindness from passers-by wherever we went.Along with Germany, it has amongst the lowest birth rates in the EU.For any population to remain stable, it needs a “total fertility rate” of 2.1 children per woman. Italy has an average of only 1.31.Last year, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco warned of Italy’s “slow demographic suicide,” saying, “over 50% of [Italian] families today are without children… another quarter have only one child, 20% have two, while just 5.1% have three or more”.Italy is not alone: Eurostat figures show that not a single EU nation is having enough children to replace its population. Britain, France and Ireland are amongst the few to come close to sustaining themselves. However, those with the lowest rates, like Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece are – some say -already past the point of no return.Some demographers say that these nations have entered a “low fertility trap” – a sort of death spiral where a nation’s population begins to collapse irretrievablyThe “low fertility trap” concept was developed by demographer Dr. Wolfgang Lutz of the Vienna Institute of Demography. Proponents say that no society has ever recovered from a sustained birth rate of under 1.5 children per woman. This is because after a few decades of very low birth rates, there are no longer enough potential mothers to have enough children to recover. Simultaneously, they say, a subtle cultural shift occurs: childlessness and small families become normal. This institutionalises low birth rates as part of the culture.The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently issued its first ever report on family well-being, noting that over the past few decades: “total fertility rates have fallen and… remain below the replacement level in most OECD countries” falling from 2.7 children per woman in 1970 to just over 1.7 in 2009.The report says that such dramatically changing birth rates can have serious knock-on effects on societies and economies: as populations age, the workforce declines, and ever-larger numbers of older people dependent on a decreasing workforce.As to why there has been such a dramatic crash in birth rates across the developed world, the OECD report says: “Postponement of childbearing is a major reason for the decline in fertility rates. Greater access to contraceptives has given more adults control over the timing and occurrence of births. And as more men and women first want to establish themselves in the labour and housing markets, many adults have chosen to postpone having children”.Letizia Mencarini, a professor of demography at the University of Florence surveyed over 3,000 Italian mothers and found that where a couple had one child, the more household chores the father did, the more likely his wife was to want a second baby.Eurostat figures also show that over one million abortions took place in the EU in 2008. The Institute of Family Policies (www.ipfe.org) says, “The number of abortions in the 27 member states of the EU in one year (1,207,646) is equivalent to the deficit in the birth rate in Europe”.Overall, the reasons fertility rates are so low in Europe are an increasing cultural norm of small families, postponement of childbearing, availability of contraception, the pressures on working mothers and the fact that many women, once pregnant, opt for abortion.However, Jesse Ausubel, a futurologist at Rockefeller University in New York, says more subtle forces may also be at play: “The question may now be whether, underneath the personal decision to procreate, lies a subliminal social mood influencing the process. The subliminal mood of Europe could now be for a blackout after 1,000 years on stage”.The plane ride from Rome to Ireland only takes a few hours. But it brings us to the opposite end of Europe’s demographic league tables: Ireland has the highest birth rate in all Europe at 1.99 children per woman, a similar level to the United States, which is estimated at 2.05. Going through the airport you hear the pleasant chaos of kids playing. Nobody notices our new baby anymore, because they are so commonplace.If you saw a beehive, a seal colony or a herd of deer suddenly begin to die off, you would conclude that something has gone seriously wrong. Perhaps the most urgent task of our era is to find out what is going wrong in so much of Europe. The very survival of some of some the most beautiful and ancient cultures in the world is at stake.