The Berlin Institute for Population and Development published a study this week detailing falling population in certain parts of Germany, particularly economically depressed parts of eastern Germany, the Ruhr valle and the Saarland. In eastern Germany one of the developments that has been discussed on afoe it becoming clear: Deferred or deterred childbirth in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of communism will have an echo around 2015, as children who were not born around 1990 fail to enter prime reproductive years about age 25. Shortly after German reunification, birth rates in the former East Germany fell as low as 0.77 children per woman. The present rate for all of Germany is 1.36, which the study says is the lowest in the world. (I’m not completely sure of that; I’ve seen very low figures for Spain, Italy, Latvia and Hungary, but don’t have them at hand to check.)
The German newspaper whose website has moderately improved quotes the head of parliament’s Committee on Families as saying the main problem is balancing work and family. No kidding. And about 20 years late.
The accompanying graphic tells another tale: People are leaving poor areas and heading where the money is. Almost all of the big drops–10 percent or more–are in rural parts of East Germany. Can’t keem ’em down on the farm, even the old collective farm. This is a hundred-and-fifty-year trend and should not be fought. People are also moving to the suburbs; just look at the belt around Berlin.
When it comes to fertility statistics I don’t trust anyone but Edward ;). According to this dateset, Macao and Hong Kong have a lower birthrate per 1000 inhabitants, which is, of course, not the common definition of fertility rate (and they are hardly comparable in most other respects)- but still.
http://www.welt-in-zahlen.de/laendervergleich.phtml
The family discourse is a hype. Most importantly, the generation who propagated individualism and alternative lifestyles, who went on a debt-financed consumption oriented welfare state expansion craze in the 70s and early 80s (and only a not too important part of the money went into making education more accessible) without ever thinking that there might be consequences should things not work out as planned, is simply not credible, because they’re mostly just concerned with their own pensions.
The other part of the debate is the let’s get back to the good old days of simply father-knows-best single income hierarchical family structures.
I believe that demography will be one, if not the most important, argument for a well endowed welfare state, particularly in a low risk society like Germany. I believe the left will finally understand this is a lifeboat for them, not a threat.
But the current debate is as annoying as predictable – seen yesterday’s report in the heute Journal about the IFO institute’s report about “taxing births”. Hopefully it will be replaced by a more educated one soon, it is badly needed.
In the first place, I’ve been saying that Germany needs to embrace its tradition of immigration–past present and future–since long before I lived here. That got much better under Red-Green, but it needs to stay front and center under Merkel as well. Immigration is not only necessary, it is a positive good for the country.
Second–and I’m sure I’m preaching to the choice here–the days of single-income hierarchically arranged families are over and done and good riddance. Even the Bundestag recognizes that, and it’s time to make policy that reflects reality. It won’t be enough to bring native-born fertility up to replacement, but still it needs to be done and urgently.
Third, the emphasis on availability of daycare is necessary but not sufficient. It’s part of making having kids, plural, normal again in Germany. Shortening school from 13 to 12 years is part of that too. As are the efforts to introduce bachelor’s degrees. A society in which well educated women leave school at age 19, or maybe even 20, and do not obtain their first university degree until their late 20s is not one in which these women will be having many children. Businesses can do their part by hiring younger people with bachelor’s degrees.
Tobias, what else would a more educated debate on demography involve?
1.36 is certainly not the lowest in the world: Spain is at 1.01, Latvia 0.9, Sweden 1.03, and Hungary 0.97, just to name a few.
You might already be aware of it, but a few years ago the UN Population Division released a study of German demographic trends and the possible impact on the country’s social services programmes 50 years out; it makes for some pretty scary reading. A PDF can be found here:
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/migration/germany.pdf
“The other part of the debate is the let’s get back to the good old days of simply father-knows-best single income hierarchical family structures.”
Like they have in Japan? Known for their rabbit like birthrate 🙂
Doug, for the individual with a life expectancy >80 the best time to get kids is in their early thirties so it doesn’t really matter if you leave school at 23 or 26
“for the individual with a life expectancy >80 the best time to get kids is in their early thirties so it doesn’t really matter if you leave school at 23 or 26”
For women, however, fertility can be an issue once they’re much past 30. While human life expectancy keeps increasing, a woman’s fertile years don’t.
Early thirties isn’t much past 30
Where is indeed Edward in all this?
Just kidding … I think the post is very relevant Doug. The Economist’s European columnist Charlemagne had an interesting piece about a months ago (I think it is walled)
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5494593
“Parts of Europe, then, may be entering a new demographic trap. People restrict family size from choice. But social, economic and cultural factors then cause this natural fertility decline to overshoot. This changes expectations, to which people respond by having even fewer children. That does not necessarily mean that birth rates will fall even more: there may yet be some natural floor. But it could mean that recovery from very low fertility rates proves to be slow or even non-existent.”
“Where is indeed Edward in all this?”
If its about demographics mostly likely over at Demography Matters! 😉
As for Doug´s comment about immigration going to “help” Germany overcome an 35-year babydip. Not likely, unless there is a major economic upturn comparable to the unification and the construction boom in the early 90´s that will draw in more immigrants. Net-migration has been decreasing under red-green for the last 4 years because more and more people are leaving Germany, not going in. There are still more people going in then leaving, but only barely. It wouldn´t surprise me if net migration turns negative for a few years or so.
People worry about too-low population growth, but deep down I suspect these things are cyclical and that birthrates eventually will rise to more reasonable levels.
“Where is indeed Edward in all this?”
Ok, ok, I’m here now. I’ve been busy. Torn between trying to understand whether Italian democracy is really in danger and why Google wants to offer a service called Gdrive :).
On the data front, Tobias and Collin are certainly right. Strange that the BIPD make this claim. I have compiled my own list of fertility here:
http://www.edwardhugh.net/tfr.html
On other issues:
“That does not necessarily mean that birth rates will fall even more: there may yet be some natural floor.”
“but deep down I suspect these things are cyclical and that birthrates eventually will rise to more reasonable levels.”
The thing is nobody really knows. There is no consensus theory on this, and we lack, of course, the necessary data. Wolfgang Lutz (who I admire enormously) put it like this to me when I asked him for something I could explicitly quote:
“We lack any good theory about the future path of fertility. In fact we cannot say anything specific about a possible lower boundâ€.
This is very carefully worded, but it is in fact where we are.
Peter is not alone in feeling that there is possibly a homeostatic process at work around replacement fertility, the prestigious Italian demographer Massimo Livi Bacci agrees. But he is something of a lone voice.
There is little evidence to support such a view, and there are good theoretical arguments against it.
On the empirical side, far from fertility really rebounding (tempo and quantum issues aside) what we can see are more and more countries entering below replacement TFR levels. In the next decade *a majority* of the world’s population will be living in countries with replacement or below replacement fertility (ie a lot of developing countries will be joining the group).
Also here in Europe, there are some signs in the surveys that desired family sizes are now falling below the 2.1 level. This summer’s Eurobarometer survey results will be interesting in this regard.
As for the theory. I think it is becoming clearer that three basic components are inter-connected: fertility, life expectancy and female education levels.
Essentially life expectancy and female education goes up, while fertility comes down. Ages on entering employment keep rising, while age at first childbirth does too. I don’t see any of this really changing dramatically, so I would imagine the tempo adjusted real fertility rates will continue to head on slowly down as life expectancy (and thus the value of the initial educational investment) grows. I don’t think there is any natural floor here, and with positive feedback from improved techniques of assisted reproduction also gradually coming online, women will be able to have their first child later and later (ie I don’t think there is a necessary ‘ceiling’ for average first birth ages at 30).
One simple way of saying the last paragraph, is that we may well attain some sort of loose homeostasis around a constant area under the population pyramid in the very long term (ie the shape changes with the base becoming ever narrower while the vertical axis gets longer as life expectancy moves upwards. Thus population numbers may hold at some constant homeostatic equilibrium level). However this would be after an initial downward adjustment in population as the current dramatic drop in fertility works its way through in some of the most affected countries. Clearly immigration can help break the fall here.
If you look at it this way, you may be able to understand my obsession with median ages, since the median age is some sort of rule of thumb guide to where the pyramid is at any point in time. Then we need to apply Sanderson and Scherbov’s life cycle rescaling idea and we may be able to get some sort of interpretation of what the median age actually means in terms of things like ‘potential economic performance’.
“I believe that demography will be one, if not the most important, argument for a well endowed welfare state”
This is in all probability true Tobias, you need help and support for young women who want to have children and you need care for the elderly. The real problem is you also need to generate the wealth to pay for it. The German debate needs to move in this direction too.
“Shortening school from 13 to 12 years is part of that too.”
This kind of move is good if the process becomes more efficient, but it would be unwise to think that turning the clock back in female education was either doable or desireable. In general we need a much more complete flexibilisation of the whole out of school-into work- out of home into partnership-having children-getting ever more education process. This needs to be adressed at the institutional structural (ie legal contractual level).
I have one nagging doubt: all those students protesting in France right now, are they in favour of this flexibilisation, or against it?
They are protesting that hire-and-fire should apply only to the young. And rightly so.
The flexibility you are talking about would need to be unilateral. People want security before they have families.
“People want security before they have families”.
Is there a syllogism available here Oliver?
People want security before they have families
People aren’t going to get security (no one can give it to them, and that isn’t what life in the information society is all about).
So People won’t have children.
This may describe the current situation, but are we happy with it? Extinction seems to be just a short step away.
The principal issue as far as I can see is that people in the 20 to 25 group today can expect to live to be over 100, and work till at least 80. They will need to wait longer till they can start to earn real money (late 20s at the earliest) but is that really such an issue if they can recover all that studying and work experience time in extra years later?
Incidentally, since assisted reproduction technologies are not evolving as rapidly as the desired age for having children is rising, there is one other alternative available which is midway to immigration, but which doesn’t seem to get much coverage: international adoption. This would seem to be a very win-win partial solution (palliative) while the technologies catch up with the needs. And of course in this context allowing same sex couples to adopt is a very definite step forward.
People aren’t going to get security
That is an oversimplification. There’s no absolute security, yet there are quite obviously degrees of relative security. Tenured professors of state universities have more of it than illegal aliens at a construction site.
If we were to agree that the populations needs to be retrained about security, than reducing it for a minority would be the wrong way, because it emphasises the value of security.
The principal issue as far as I can see is that people in the 20 to 25 group today can expect to live to be over 100, and work till at least 80.
I very much doubt anybody under is giving any consideration to that. You force them to choose between career and children.
It seems to me that childless people need to be discriminated against in employment, that is you need to tax employers for employing childless people. We complain about not enough child care, but we always blindly assume that that has to be a state function. Why?
“under 30” it was meant to read
I have to say I can’t help noticing a similarity between this demographic paradox of security and the Keynesian paradox of thrift (and for that matter the liquidity trap).
“I have to say I can’t help noticing a similarity between this demographic paradox of security and the Keynesian paradox of thrift (and for that matter the liquidity trap).”
Interesting. Very interesting, especially when you think about Lutz’s fertility trap hypothesis.
“If we were to agree that the populations needs to be retrained about security”
This, IMHO, is what the Lisbon process is all about. Of course the main ‘school’ here is life itself.
“You force them to choose between career and children.”
No, it isn’t me or you who is doing that, it is life itself, and evolution. Darwin didn’t invent nature, he only described how some of its processes worked.
“that is you need to tax employers for employing childless people. We complain about not enough child care, but we always blindly assume that that has to be a state function. Why?”
Well what you propose isn’t exactly a market solution. Why do we need the state in, basically because their is a biological reproductive asymmetry between men and women, and this produces a clear market failure. If you want, all men are potential free riders. I just don’t think Adam Smith made it on through to all this.
Changing the German Gymnasium, pre-university schooling, from 13 to 12 years does not shortchange female education. It moves it to a university setting one year earlier than had been the case. Britons, for example, leave school earlier than Germans, but I don’t see female education in the UK suffering particularly because of that difference.
I’m not sure when it made sense to warehouse young men (universities and Gymnasien not having been co-ed when the length was set) until age 19, but I am quite sure it makes no sense now.
I am convinced that in Germany at least a great deal of the flexibility that Edward is calling for will have to come from companies. They must hire 22-year-olds with BA degrees; they must hire people in their 30s, 40s and 50s. They must change their hierarchical hiring and promoting tendencies. This is the flexibility that Germany needs most. The people are ready to be flexible; the firms must rise to meet that challenge.
This, IMHO, is what the Lisbon process is all about. Of course the main ‘school’ here is life itself.
If so, this is laughably small an effort. You cannot hope to alter the core premises of a society with a political declaration known only to a small minority.
No, it isn’t me or you who is doing that, it is life itself, and evolution.
Evolution is always on the side of those passing on their genes. You are just saying that the European liberal social model is not viable. Of course, it is possible, that that is exactly the case.
If you want, all men are potential free riders.
To some degree, yes. But we are clearly making the problem worse by state intervention like universal pensions.
Furthermore, it seems to me that you are vastly underestimating the role of the state in forming modern society. Foundations like universal education and equal rights are state interventions.
Tobias, what else would a more educated debate on demography involve?
oops, apparently, my erlier reply was lost in digital nirvana…
that said, a lot of the things mentioned in this thread –
The real problem is you also need to generate the wealth to pay for it. The German debate needs to move in this direction too.
This is not about wealth per se, it’s, unfortunately, once again a distributive conflict, and one that’s still inhibiting some more important growth generating reforms, like changing the financing structure in the continental style welfare systems.
>I am convinced that in Germany at least a great >deal of the flexibility that Edward is calling >for will have to come from companies. They must >hire 22-year-olds with BA degrees; they must hire >people in their 30s, 40s and 50s. They must >change their hierarchical hiring and promoting >tendencies. This is the flexibility that Germany >needs most. The people are ready to be flexible; >the firms must rise to meet that challenge.
Yes, but this is a long process. As the people running the shops have grown up in a different world. That said, they’re probably still much more innovative than their counterparts in politics.
I think that will change soon though. I think we will see a lot of innovative ideas to address Oliver’s concerns about security. But, alas, this is, in many respects, a generational distributive conflict. Of course, everyone knew it would come at some point. It’s still somewhat surprising when it finally arrives.
Shorter consensus: Don’t be so fucking German…
More seriously…no, the eternal student has got to go, yes, so has some of the formality..
No such consensus.
The problem is seen in Germany, Spain and Italy at least, probably in most of eastern Europe, too. This does not explain it.
“Also here in Europe, there are some signs in the surveys that desired family sizes are now falling below the 2.1 level. This summer’s Eurobarometer survey results will be interesting in this regard.”
How much is this due to a change in kids saying they don’t want kids and how much is this due to kids saying that they don’t want more than >3 kids. If it is the first that it can be a problem (but how many don’t change their mind, anecdotal a lot). If it is the second than they just have a more realistic view of life as only the very poor or very rich can afford to have more than 3 kids and a normal lifestyle.
“I think it is becoming clearer that three basic components are inter-connected: fertility, life expectancy and female education levels.”
Fertility is only a rounding problem until the late thirties and as such not important in deciding TFR. Life expectancy can be divided in two parts. First part the chance that a baby survives to age 3. Higher babydeath just leads to a higher TFR without really changing the number of 3 year olds which is a more meaningfull number(mortality drops off at that age). Second part is the life expectancy of young adults. The higher it is the better it is to wait because your children will be younger when you need care (it is why in some cultures it was the youngest who inherited the farm). This leads to a tempo effect that leads to a lower TFR for a considerable amount of time. Female education level is a good proxy for the duration and necessity of an education to be reasonable successful in life. Education costs a lot of money (even if the eduction itself is free because kids have to eat to) so parents can only have a few. Being a proxy is IMHO the real reason why the female education level of a class is of such influence on the TFR number.
“The principal issue as far as I can see is that people in the 20 to 25 group today can expect to live to be over 100, and work till at least 80.”
This is a possibility but only if medical science makes a breakthrough which it didn’t make in the last 50 years. The life expectancy of 25 year olds has only gone up a few years in that time and that rise is partly due to the much lower number of accidental deaths.
“international adoption”
Has a big problem outside the moral problem which i have with the people who put kids up for adoption (don’t they know about abortion or are they making money in the baby trade?). Kids aren’t white which creates really big problems in adolescences. (If they look like their adopted parents the problems are onlybig instead of really big)
“It seems to me that childless people need to be discriminated against in employment, that is you need to tax employers for employing childless people.”
Is already policy. The number of couples that decide not to have kids is small compared with who can’t and singles are already discriminated against in the tax system. (employment is only superficially controllable by the state)
“Evolution is always on the side of those passing on their genes. You are just saying that the European liberal social model is not viable. Of course, it is possible, that that is exactly the case.”
Memes don’t care about procreation. It is successful as long as long as the number of births and conversions is greater than the competition. Which it seems to be.
“But we are clearly making the problem worse by state intervention like universal pensions.”
This assumes that without universal pensions the numbers would be higher and i don’t see how that would work. TFR isn’t so low because couples decide not to have kids. Almost all couples decide to have kids (but not all succeed) TFR is so low because they decide to have only two, which i think is about the optimum in a society were pay is highly dependend on costly education. You could argue that single women should also get kids but that is frowned upon and it is the question if that is the best investment strategy?
A better strategy to up the TFR is to create a substantial underclass because people who do not have the capabilities to give their kids a reasonable education seem to have a substantially higher TFR
Alex, like the British do any better?
Is already policy. The number of couples that decide not to have kids is small compared with who can’t and singles are already discriminated against in the tax system. (employment is only superficially controllable by the state)
No, taxes for the childless are higher. To an employer it is still better to employ somebody with no or fewer kids. They are more ready to move around, don’t take days off because the kids are sick, etc…
If you want people (rather mostly women) to be able to have kids and careers, you need to make it cheaper to hire them because they have kids or have more kids.
We have other state interventions which are bad for families. Eg. we have tariffs against cheap agricultural imports. As kids have to eat, this hits families disproportionally (singles with children even harder). Zoning laws driving up rents have the same effect.
“You are just saying that the European liberal social model is not viable.”
The US model isn’t that different. If you’re right, it shouldn’t be viable either.
Interesting question. How do you measure differences among social models?
By the way, I don’t think that the European social model as such is not viable, it most likely can change to solve this problem, but change it must. Fertility that has dropped so low cannot be cured by immigration. It may help to soften the effect while the necessary changes take effect, but that’s all it can do.
However, we can look at the differences in fertility within Europe and within the US. But I fail to see a conclusive picture emerge from that. But how do you know which of the many correlations you’ll find are causative?
People without children are more likely to get pregnant, more likely to take a sabatical and more likely to try something new at another company. All reasons why you shouldn’t hire them. This isn’t true for people above 40 but those are often already second choice candidates anyway.
Zoning laws don’t drive up the amount of money people spend on housing (you could argue that they could afford better housing for the same price but that is something else and a bit mood as the states that subsidise housing have also strict zoneing laws. Besides i could argue that strictly zoned housing is better than unrestricted housing)
Oliver, you are not looking hard enough. The difference in fertility between the US can easily be explained by three factors. Size of underclass who can’t escape through education without being geniuses. Size of religious nutters. Size of emigrants who came from societies with a high average family size. Especially the more statefied class system in the US is the reason why they have a higher TFR than Europe.
Interesting input Charlie; i.e. that TFR correlates positively with the social stratification of a society. In a nutshell, I can see why poor people would want to have more children than rich people but is that a signinficant point in speaking of TFR; the lower classes as a society’s production plant?
Following up on another point in this discussion; how to differentiate social models? Well, stratification is one strong indicator of differences in societies. Elaborating further we should expect to see Anglo-Saxon societies with a high degree of stratification to “enjoy” this source of fertility?
Doug Muir mentioned in an earlier discussion that New England is below replacement, so Charly’s factors aren’t necessarily the whole answer.
“I don’t think that the European social model as such is not viable”
I got that, I should have said if your right about the implication of what Ed said.
The problem with this “enjoyment” is that this class is the easiest to be sucked away from this society (which is mostly red state Americans and their immigrant decendents)
AFAIK New England isn’t known for being religious, having a large underclass (who only have access to bad schools) or having many emigrants. You would expect a TFR inline with those in Europe.
Charly,
sorry for being unclear. Yes, there is that pattern within the US. But Europe also shows large variations in fertility. I see no commonality in the high fertility areas of Europe and the US. France isn’t that more stratified than Italy or Spain.
As for stratification, it may also boost fertility in the higher classes by making domestic help available.
TFR is not fertility. Especially when you consider that TFR is very subseptable to changes in average age of first born. My estimate is that an increase of the age of the mother of 1 year over a decade will depress TFR by 10% but wont change fertility. In Eastern Europe the average age for first child increased by more than 2 years and this is the major reason that it has such a low TFR compaired with Western Europe
Domestic help == (semi) illegal immigrants
They are already cheap
That’s not everything. It needs to be socially accepted.
40 year old Philipine au pairs are socially total acceptable for people who can afford them.