20 August 2008

Underpopulation Sucking Europe to Nothing

Europe's largest, most pressing problem for the next century is underpopulation. Europe is an emasculated continent unable to stand up to Serbia, much less Russia. But unless European women start having babies soon, Europe is likely to be conquered by a ragtag, high-breeding group of third world illiterates and untrainables. European welfare systems are quite generous, but if they are not funded by productive workers' wages and corporate profits, Europe may become the next Darfur or Gaza.
The magic figure for demographers is 2.1 births per couple. That, allowing for the fact that some girls die before they reach child-bearing age, is the figure at which a population replaces itself. In Europe the last time that fertility was above replacement level was in the mid-1960s. But now, for the first time on record, birthrates in southern and eastern Europe have dropped below 1.3 – well below the 1.5 which the United Nations has marked as the crisis point. If things continue the population there will be cut in half in just 45 years. In Italy, one recent survey put it at 1.2. Cities such as Milan and Bologna recorded less than 1, the lowest birthrates anywhere.

Things are as bleak in Japan. There the total fertility rate declined by nearly a third between 1975 and 2001, from 1.91 to 1.33. The average family size has remained the same, but there are fewer families. Half of Japanese women have not married by the age of 30, and 20 per cent of them are not marrying ever.

But it is not just the developed world. The birthrate is plummeting in east Asia, too, in countries which were, until three decades ago, considered poor. Overall in Asia the fertility rate fell from 2.4 in 1970 to 1.5 today. China's rate is down from 6.06 to 1.8 and declining. Thailand is now 1.5. Singapore, Taiwan and Burma are similar. The lowest is South Korea with only 1.1 children per couple.

"South East Asia has plummeted to levels it took Europe 150 years to reach in just 30 years," says Dr Jane Falkingham, Professor of Demography and International Social Policy at the University of Southampton. Alarmed by this extremely low fertility, South Korea has slashed government spending on birth control. Singapore is now offering tax rebates to couples with more than two children. Japan is piling money into nurseries and childcare.

...Populations may be expected to shrink in Italy, Spain, Greece and Germany (which is losing 100,000 people a year) and decline even more rapidly further east in Russia, Romania and Bulgaria, which is set to plunge by almost half....Childlessness is now a fashionable lifestyle choice, as it is in Germany where 27.8 per cent of women born in 1960 are childless, far more than any other European country.... _Independent
Russia is losing half its population every 40 years or so. Spain, Italy, and Greece are almost as bad. Who will defend Russia's vast empire when there are not enough young men to field an army? Who will work to pay for Europe's generous welfare benefits to the voluntarily unemployed, and to polygamous emigrants with many wives and children?

It has always been the way of the proliferating tribe to push the non-proliferating tribes out of the best land. History has not been canceled in that regard. Europe's tribes from Russia to Spain to Sweden to the UK are due to be displaced and forgotten. Uneducated, quasi-untrainables from the third world who have not forgotten how to procreate will take their places.

The singularity is not the answer, unless you enjoy living in an empty fantasy. Migrating to Switzerland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or the US will only speed the overrunning of those you leave behind. Besides, the same basic underlying dynamic is at work in all of the developed countries, just running at different rates.

The first step would be waking up.

Further reading:

The Global Baby Bust
Europe's Baby Bust
America Alone (Google Books excerpt)
America Alone (Amazon page)
A Return to Pastoral Europe?
Birth of an Empire
Fiscal Policy and Fertility in the US
Transition of Europe and Japan to labour shortage economies
Fascinating Philip Longman PDF presentation on depopulation
Russian plans to reverse population decline
No Easy Answers

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14 Comments:

Blogger yamahaeleven said...

Of course there is always a solution:

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/08/if-you-subsidize-something-you-get-more.html

Wednesday, 20 August, 2008  
Blogger Markku said...

Strict immigration policy + more automation + higher retirement age (enabled by longer healthspans) = no takeover by "untrainables" = problem solved.

Wednesday, 20 August, 2008  
Blogger J said...

No Sir. The first step is have children. You are wringing your hands at the fertile´s invasion, but they are not invading with tanks, they have been invited to fill in for the never born.

Wednesday, 20 August, 2008  
Blogger Markku said...

No Sir. The first step is have children. You are wringing your hands at the fertile´s invasion, but they are not invading with tanks, they have been invited to fill in for the never born.

Actually, Western European guest worker programs were mostly halted a generation ago. Our Third World immigration mostly consists of refugees and family reunifications thereof.

The balance of all types of incentives and disincentives (social, economic etc.) to having children in modern urbanized society are what have created the present situation. There is nothing that can be done to completely reverse the situation. Only mitigation is possible to some extent. The best course of action is for society to adapt to the basic reality. Besides, there are advantages to a shrinking population. Up to the age of 20 to 25, young people are basically useless in modern technologically advanced society whereas the average pensioner only lives for 10-15 years on pension.

The only thing more powerful at motivating the productive to reproduce above replacement level than urbanization is serious religion awakening. (By blindly shoveling money at the problem one mainly feeds welfare queens.) But religion has also been on the decline in the West. The more scientifically englightened the overall culture, the harder it is for people to take religious fairy tales such as the Bible seriously. It's no co-incidence that Americans being the most ignorant, on average, of all First Worlders are also the most religious, on average. (Several of my friends and acquintances have spent a year in the USA as exhange students in high school and every single one can testified how much less rigorous the curriculumn was there.)

Thursday, 21 August, 2008  
Blogger neil craig said...

"Europe is an emasculated continent unable to stand up to Serbia, much less Russia."

Did I not read a couple of days ago that Russia was doomed for exactly the same reason? Surely this weakens the chance of us being overrun by the Russian hordes, or indeed the Serbian hordelets.

Maybe we should start importing Mexicans?

Thursday, 21 August, 2008  
Blogger al fin said...

The russians are indeed doomed over the next few decades. Doomed to be overrun by Muslims from within and without, and by China in the extreme east. In the meantime they will bully the EU to their heart's content.

Of course, Europe will not be overrun by hordes of Russians. Europe is already being overrun by hordes of third worlders who will never be able to support the high tech infrastructure of Europe.

The reference to Serbia was in regard to the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia that Europe and the UN stood helpless to stop, until Clinton finally intervened.

You can certainly import anyone you wish, if you think it will help. Judging by the denial-chic among most Europeans, it is likely to be too late to change course substantially.

Thursday, 21 August, 2008  
Blogger Markku said...

And the USA is free of being overrun by massive hordes of third worlders who will never be able to support a high tech infrastructure exactly how?

How many kids do you have, Mr. Deals-with-Harsh-Reality?

Thursday, 21 August, 2008  
Blogger Markku said...

Unlike weak Americans, whose idea of an occupation of a country is to rebuild schools, soccer fields, and civil infrastructure, Russians have always known how to rape, pillage, and terrorise a population. Occupations should be mindlessly brutal and cruel, and such is the Russian occupation of Georgia.

So very unlike Abu Ghraib under American administration?

Americans probably had good intentions at the beginning of the occupation of Iraq. But things turned nasty soon. You see, when you put 150,000 solders in street corners, they become sitting ducks for insurgents. Utterly lacking in intelligence, American occupiers then went on arresting pretty much random people by the thousands, locking them up in Abu Ghraib and other prisons, and torturing them for information. Add to that general government mismanagement and shady dealings with corporatons partly owned by some of the very people in the US government at the time of the invasion (check who owns Halliburton) and you've got a very ugly mess in your hands.

The Russian occupation of Georgian territories adjacent to South Ossetia are are definitely nothing better and probably much worse given that thousands of South Ossetian militiamen who are answerable to exactly nobody have arrived with the Russian army.

Al Fin, you're a fine blogger when you stick to topics like technology but in politics you haven't got a shred of objectivity and credibility.

Thursday, 21 August, 2008  
Blogger Ugh said...

Markku - you seriously compare doggie tricks in Abu Ghraib to slaughter and executions? And what fine intentions does Russia have for Georgia? America will eventually leave Iraq - and you know what? Just like (West)Germany and Japan and South Korea it will be a better place than before the war. Can the same be said for ANY of the countries the USSR occupied/controlled for 70 years?

Besides Al Fin has his head screwed on straight when it comes to politics - his criticisms cut in all directions when deserved. Not one of us is completely objective, and only phony baloney journalists ever claim to be...

Thursday, 21 August, 2008  
Blogger Markku said...

Markku - you seriously compare doggie tricks in Abu Ghraib to slaughter and executions?

You're totally mistaken if you think the tortures that took place in Abu Ghraib were limited to mere silly but harmless doggie tricks. Torture has a nasty habit of getting out of hands. People were beaten do death in AG.

And what fine intentions does Russia have for Georgia?

Did I ever say Russia have any but nasty intentions for Georgia?

America will eventually leave Iraq - and you know what? Just like (West)Germany and Japan and South Korea it will be a better place than before the war.

Except that Iraq is no Germany or Japan. Iraq is a multisectarian and multinational muslim cesspool. There is no such thing as Iraqi national identity.

Can the same be said for ANY of the countries the USSR occupied/controlled for 70 years?

If you think I'm saying occupations by both powers are equally bad, you're very much mistaken.

Thursday, 21 August, 2008  
Blogger neil craig said...

America assisted in the genocide & ethnic cleansing of Krajina, the "Croatian" area where 250,000 Serbs used to live. This was organised by American officers supplied by MPRI. It tends to throw doubt on your theory about Americans inability to do occuption with biblical thoroughness. Also on the claim that it was the Serbians who were doing most of the ethnic cleansing. It most certainly wasn't, it was the western powers & their (ex-)Nazi hirelings. Any count of refugees on boths sides shows that clearly.

Al I second Markuu's opinion of both your strengths & weaknesses.

Friday, 22 August, 2008  
Blogger al fin said...

A better way of posting "off topic" is to publish a comment on your own blog and leave a link. Hopefully, on your own blogs, you at least provide documentation for your claims, even if not particularly credible.

Craig, thanks for your moral support.

Blogs are not democracies. Bloggers post on whatever topics are of interest to them at the time. This blog means to provoke thought as well as emotion. It has succeeded in the latter in this case, at least.

Friday, 22 August, 2008  
Blogger neil craig said...

Entirely your right & I see why you aren't allowing comments on other anti European/Russian/Foreign people threads.

Here is a link tosuch 1 of such articles http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2006/02/scottish-liberal-democrat-policy-on.html

Saturday, 23 August, 2008  
Blogger al fin said...

I see why you aren't allowing comments on other anti European/Russian/Foreign people threads.

Exactly. It is a discipline for someone to learn to deal with his own cognitive dissonance--particularly a younger person whose frontal lobes may not have yet myelinated.

Being allowed to comment immediately, out of emotional reaction, merely causes the individual to repeat his programming ad nauseum. Best to allow his thoughts to bounce around a bit like a brownian particle in the hopes that some small portion of the person's mind will achieve escape velocity.
;-)

Saturday, 23 August, 2008  

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“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” _George Orwell

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