Why are Europeans so hesitant to have children, and what does it mean for their future and for ours?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29Birth-t.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

by robg • 18 years ago

33 55 18 years ago

nytimes.com

jsmcgd4• 18 years ago

“It’s insane to consider low birthrate as a crisis,”

I could not agree more.

DanielBMarkham4• 18 years ago

Care to explain yourself? Would you be happy if people stopped reproducing?

daniel-cussen• 18 years ago

0 babies per family is an edge case.

jsmcgd4• 18 years ago

Not entirely no.

davidw3• 18 years ago

Not entirely sure it's hacker news, but it's certainly a well written and in-depth article. It sums up a lot of things I've kind of known for a while: places with better social systems like the Nordic countries are better places to have children than in somewhere like Italy (where I'm writing from, on vacation) which is, very sadly, going nowhere fast. Having our daughter Helen in Austria was far easier, despite the language barrier, than it would have been in Italy.

mynameishere2• 18 years ago

My god, I could barely stand to skim that. So, so much nothingness in so many words. A few points:

1. There is no crisis. Certain conditions produce certain effects. When smallpox is introduced into a population, the population declines, but subsequent generations resist it. The modern world has a perfectly consistent effect on population size, roughly the same as smallpox. The fittest, as always, will survive, and subsequent generations will not have the same problem.

2. The United States is not a "sparkling exception", if you correct your samples. If you reduce Americans to their European subset, you see that Birth rate was 11.6 for Non-Hispanic Whites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat... ... the lowest of all major groups.

3. The subject of immigration should not come up. Europe will not "save itself" by replacing itself with North Africans. This point warrants no discussion. If you hate Europe as much as the editors of the nytimes, that's another matter, and it's a valid viewpoint to the degree that it is open. It's not open, of course.

4. Europe and Japan are both far too crowded. As long as the situation isn't treated like a crisis, with hopeless policies (mass immigration, mass boondoggles) the long-term effect will be positive.

5. Three big groups who've reversed the trend: Mormons, Albanian muslims, and Ultra-orthodox Jews. A portend of things to come, and it's no surprise that the nytimes is troubled by the situation resolving itself.

gruseom• 18 years ago

Birth rate was 11.6 [per 1000 population] for Non-Hispanic Whites

But that's not the unit (average children per woman) that they use in the article, and there isn't an obvious conversion between the two (is there?). So this isn't enough information to compare how the birth rate among Americans of European descent compares to the birth rate in Europe itself... which I agree would be interesting.

Edit: I also agree about it being tiring to even skim that article. I do love it, though, when apocalpytic crises directly contradict each other. Weren't we all going to die because of exponential population growth?

cia_plant• 18 years ago

the conversion factor would be life expectancy * 2, wouldn't it be? So ~160*11.6 / 1000 = 1.86. Overestimate since life expectancy is just shy of eighty.

jsmcgd4• 18 years ago

Normally if I feel I'm slogging my way through an article I'll be reading it in the NY Times. I've had suicidal thoughts before when I've come across a 'next page' button at the bottom of one of their articles.

davidw3• 18 years ago

> There is no crisis. Certain conditions produce certain effects. When smallpox is introduced ...

Perhaps - just perhaps - people facing a massive die off due to something like smallpox might view it as a crisis.

What is viewed as the "crisis" in places like Italy, is that people do want to have children, but feel they can't, because of the many reasons cited in the article.

mynameishere2• 18 years ago

people facing a massive die off due to something like smallpox might view it as a crisis

First, "There is no crisis" refers to birthrates, not smallpox. Second, by "crisis" I mean existential crises, not personal. Even the black plague was not an existential crisis. For comparison, the Ottoman and Mongol expansions were.

because of the many reasons

Every western country has had its birthrate drop as the economy and education levels improved. It's a very solid correlation, and almost certainly the real reason. But people still say, "I can't afford children" (or whatever), even if the real reason is their large and distracting discretionary income. People rationalize, and certainly don't understand their own motivations.

emmett• 18 years ago

1. Natural selection has nothing to do the question. This is an issue of culture, not of genetics. You could easily have a situation where we globally had declining birthrate. The interesting question is - why are birth rates for these populations falling? Is it purely a matter of wealth?

2. If you reduce Americans to the wealthiest subset, you'd see the same trend. Historically, if you reduced Americans to their non-Irish subset, you'd see the same thing, because the Irish were the poor immigrant group of the time.

3. Europe isn't a thing. Very few people even think of themselves as Europeans. Well, so far anyway. I hold out hope the EU will gain currency. What's important is still national identity, and European countries have survived waves of immigration before.

4. Agreed. This isn't a crisis until population levels dip quite a bit more.

5. Mormons, albanian muslims, and ultra-orthodox jews haven't reversed any trend. Their birthrates are (roughly) constant. It's everyone else whose birthrate declined.

radu_floricica• 18 years ago

I find nytimes usually isn't worth the skim. The subjects are interesting enough, but the articles are neither informative nor insightful.

Not to be offtopic: I also don't consider it a crisis. Population aging, yes, that's a problem, but between current birth rate and imigration that's not a problem. As for all the issues imigration brings: talk about them directly, and the solutions will be much more apparent then blaming everything on birthrate.

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

There are huge implications. Think about real estate - the demand to build new homes. That could impact millions of people in their employment. Think about systems like Social Security, where a large young working class pays for the retired class.

There is a trend followed very closely in robotics about the number of elderly people per worker. The larger that ratio gets, the more we'll need robots. And not in 30 years -- in 15 years. We need to support the baby boomers. They'll be 70+ in 7 years. It's even worse in Japan.

The cultural landscape will also change significantly. The Muslim minorities might not be minorities for long. This is a change of epic proportions.

ajross4• 18 years ago

Relax. A slowdown in birth rates is a temporary disturbance (the opposite of the baby boom, in fact). Over time, society returns to a steady state. Yes, the finances get complicated, and we're looking at a generation or two that may see substandard retirement income. But it's hardly a huge social problem; three generations back we were looking at every generation having no retirement income.

And the "muslim minority" stuff is just alarmist (and, frankly, semi-racist) political spin. Past the third generation, minorities stop being minorities. They become culturally indistinguishable from the overall society, with at most a unique subculture. This is true of all cultures. They're malleable.

No one freaks out (here in the US) about the Polish Menace any more, nor about what all those greasy catholics (!) are going to do to our society, nor about all that lucre under the control of The Jew, nor about what will happen if we allow those awful Blacks to wed (!) our pure, white daughters.

Do you see the point? In 50 years, all this "ZOMG Muslims!" mania is going to look equally dumb. If all that scary stuff didn't kill us, what are a few muslims going to accomplish? :)

The saddest thing is how many of the people freaking out over things like muslim immigration (or, here in the US, mexicans) are grandchildren of people who saw exactly the same kind of discrimination.

thewatcher• 18 years ago

> And the "muslim minority" stuff is just alarmist (and, frankly, semi-racist) political spin.

Islam is not a race.

> Past the third generation, minorities stop being minorities. They become culturally indistinguishable from the overall society

Where are you from? This has not been the case with Muslims in Europe at large.

> Do you see the point? In 50 years, all this "ZOMG Muslims!" mania is going to look equally dumb. If all that scary stuff didn't kill us, what are a few muslims going to accomplish?

How much do you know about Islam and its history? Islam and the Western culture are fundamentally incompatible.

cousin_it• 18 years ago

> Past the third generation, minorities stop being minorities.

In the US, yes. In Europe it's the other way around. First generation immigrants work, second generation becomes antisocial and militant. Look at France.

> This is true of all cultures. They're malleable.

Definition of "malleable": can be flattened by hammering.

DanielBMarkham4• 18 years ago

This sounds to me like you're making a speech regarding the current silliness of popular opinion rather than the points in question.

Once we set up social institutions (like Social Security in the states, for instance) we make certain assumptions about the way the population numbers are going to behave. If we're wrong, or in the case of the U.S. if we keep making promises we can't keep, then those social contracts become null and void. That's a huge implication for the average citizen. I'd even use the word "crisis".

The Japan-medical-robot story in particular is interesting, as it follows along with the general meme of building our way out of our problems. I'm a huge fan of immigration from all corners, but having said that I'm not sure if replacing, say, 50% of your country's population is such a good thing for all of those social promises you made -- the new management might have much different ideas of what is equitable and what isn't.

So yes, having less kids is a big problem for the Europeans. It's not the end of mankind, but I'm not sure it was played up as such, was it?

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

Europe has had a dominant christian majority for many hundreds of years. The rise of another majority, with a strong atheist minority means huge cultural and anthropological changes are afoot. It isn't racist to point this out. It's race baiting to call every comment dealing with race or religion racist.

It actually betrays a good bit of naivete about the history of the world to think such changes don't matter.

And you clearly underestimate the effects of an aging population. Look at the numbers. They are staggering.

kingkongrevenge5• 18 years ago

> Past the third generation, minorities stop being minorities.

False. Native Americans and Hispanics do not fully assimilate in the United State, ever. We have five generations of data. Globally there are many other examples. In fact, the data show that after the third generation Hispanic educational attainment regresses. You cannot compare what's happening now to the past experience in the US of assimilating waves of western European ethnicities. At the very least there's the critical difference of very long periods of virtually zero immigration in the past.

> In 50 years, all this "ZOMG Muslims!" mania is going to look equally dumb.

In France in the 1890s there was a bunch of alarmism about how the German birthrate was so much higher and this posed a big threat. Of course, it all blew over and Germany never ever bothered France again and the alarmists looked dumb.

> No one freaks out (here in the US) about the Polish Menace any more, nor about what all those greasy catholics...

There is a certain fundamental incompatibility between The West and Islam. There are a lot of Hindus in the West, you know, and nobody really has big issues with them. The comparison to Catholic immigration is ridiculous. You can sing "It's a Small World" all you want, but back here in the real world there are deep differences between cultures.

akd• 18 years ago

> Past the third generation, minorities stop being minorities. They become culturally indistinguishable from the overall society.

Excuse me? Black people are culturally indistinguishable from white people in the USA? And the whole miscegenation thing is still very real; try to name some onscreen romances between blacks and whites, and witness the backlash against the Super Bowl ad with Terrell Owens and a white woman.

gojomo• 18 years ago

More evidence that like other animals, humans don't breed well in captivity?

(Offended europhiles -- I kid, I kid! Also, this quip is not original, but I can't recall where I'd first read it.)

peakok3• 18 years ago

Oh please. Take a look at the charts of the world human population of all time : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_curve.svg

Where is the crisis now ?

(I'd started to write a long answer adressing this topic but it would have been too long. If you want to digg into this matter I'll follow you).

vixen99• 18 years ago

Reminder: we are talking here about Europe not the overall world population. Moreover whatever some moderate Muslims say, Islam is fundamentally intolerant of other religions and atheistic values. In case you doubt it take a look at Islamic societies across the globe.

The much enhanced birthrate of Muslims in Europe does therefore present us with a serious question as to how Europe will change as a result of this once Muslims are democratically able to alter national goals and cultural norms. This is nothing to do with racism or bigotry.

peakok3• 18 years ago

Let's see.

Since (all ?) europeans countries birthrates are agnostics, they include the recently immigrated people as well. Therefore, they include the muslims people. If everything above is true, and the birthrates are still low, then the article contradicts itself when it says : "[...] — mostly Muslim — who have yet to be infected by the modern malady called family planning [...]".

It appears on the contrary, according to our low birthrates, that they don't have as much childs as we fear. Whatever the reality is, there is a logical fallacy somewhere.

Since the science of demography knowns only 2 factors : (1) birthrates (2) migration flows (wich are continuous), we are left with the only other explaination.

Maybe you understand now why you are deluding yourself if you study demographics without considering the whole world population, because this is what is feeding the migration flows. Whatever the laws you pass, you won't be able to stop people from all over the world to try to escape their life of misery, people who have such hopes for a better life that they take insane risks to make it and more than often die in the journey. The first waves of US immigrants were people fleeding oppression too.

But the true problem isn't even here. The demographic doxa wich states that we should have everlasting high birthrates is closely tied the Economic Growth paradigm, and it is the true responsible for the great post-war immigration policies that european countries engaged in. This doxa (more people = more consumers = more taxpayers = more economic growth) is the true responsible for the situation you describe. If you're looking for an ennemy, then fight this doxa.

Maybe we can live in a world where "less is more". Malthus would have been probably right if he lived today : our earth has limited ressources and our problems are just starting as a lot of emerging countries are catching up with the Occidental lifestyle. A lot of our current problems could be solved by having less people around (from education to transportation and ravaged landscapes).

Even if our technology allows us to make it, there is no philosophical nor practical reason to be 20 billions on earth instead of 6 or 3 or even 1. Especially if the conditions of life are greater, common sense would suggest less quantity for more quality. Less misery in black Africa, less hopeless immigrants, and why not, less malls in Occident.

The more people reproduces in poor countries, the more they'll take their shot at trying to reach richer countries. That's just, well, human. In trying to produce too much wealth, the process just becomes destructive for the cultures at some point and benefits to nobody.

wheels• 18 years ago

Well, but it also doesn't have very much to do with Islam, which is why all of these sorts of things do pander a bit to a prejudiced bent. The social patterns of say, Turkish in Germany (where I live now) and Mexican-Americans in the southern US (where I grew up) are roughly comparable and all of the specifically "Muslim" traits can be more effectively explained in socio-economic terms.

Islam, like all of the major world religions, has shown remarkable flexibility in adapting to the societies where it has spread. One way you can pretty easily see this is that despite the four countries with the largest Muslim populations not being in the Middle East or northern Africa, "muslim" culture, in this context, is almost always referring to those regions.

sealedidentity• 18 years ago

Hugely informative article.

A sarcastic thought just popped into my head. To make a snide remark: at least we Europeans don't do "Procreation for recreation."

ComputerGuru3• 18 years ago

I'm a Muslim. How many people here are going to start suddenly hating me because I'm part of the "grand conspiracy to take over the world?"

Oh yeah, I'm also American. I'm a practicing Muslim, raised in a western culture, contributing to western society, and fitting right in...

I'm really disappointed to see some of the hate and prejudice that plagues the ignorant portion of the offliners here on HN - I thought hackers were supposed to be more open minded and stuff!

ajross4• 18 years ago

Amen. I really would have expected more open-mindedness here. This whole "muslim plague" narrative I'm hearing from european right-wingers is straight out of 1920's america. It's all the same terms, all the same fear, all the same demographics. The only thing different is the proper nouns.

kingkongrevenge5• 18 years ago

How exactly is it "hateful" to have opinions on immigration policy?

ComputerGuru3• 18 years ago

It's hateful because it's not referring to non-citizen immigrants but rather the lump-sum Muslims in general - which includes people with full citizenships, etc.

smanek4• 18 years ago

Any religion that doesn't tolerate disobedience/non-believers deserves hatred from all educated people.

In my opinion (as a theist, but not an adherent of any religion) anyone who believes in the quran or old testament deserves to be shunned.

Those books (and yes, I've read english translations of both) are full of hate mongering vitriol. They urge 'believers' to gruesomely kill anyone who disagrees with their particular set of outlandish beliefs (even if the non-believer doesn't do anything to harm you).

So yes, a priori I do discount Jews and Muslims. Frankly, if you choose to associate yourself with the sort of racist, misogynistic, intolerant tripe that permeates the torah and quran, I place you on about the same level as neo-nazis and book burners. You should be allowed to spew whatever bullshit you want, but you're a moron and will be treated accordingly.

Just so we're clear, I'm all in favor of religion (or atheism, or agnosticism) in principle. I'm just strongly against any world view and philosophy that demands you kill people who disagree with you, but aren't trying to harm you.

rms2• 18 years ago

People pick and choose their beliefs to reconcile it with a reasonable world view. Your equivalence of Judaism and Islam on this issue without considering the vast spectrum of beliefs in both religions shows your ignorance, or perhaps your desire to distort the issue to fit your particular world view. Religions are more than their holy books.

biohacker42• 18 years ago

The future is bleak, but it's not what you think.

Birth control and education are like a virus that impacts fertility. Over time we will adapt. It used to the sex drive was enough to reproduce, in the future the specific desire to HAVE kids will replace that.

So the population will drop, then slowly turn around, but it will not end up in a balance. What you'll have is wealthy educated citizens of liberal democracies who absolutely have got have lots of kids.

We better have colonized space then.

Why are Europeans so hesitant to have children, and what does it mean for their future and for ours?

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