Germany joins list of EU’s countries with ‘ultra-low’ fertility rate

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe speaks to Dr. Paul Morland, Leading demographer and broadcaster and the author of ‘Tomorrow’s People'.

Transcript

00:00Let's get more on this now with demographer and broadcaster Dr. Paul Morland, also author of the book Tomorrow's People.

00:07Paul, thanks so much for joining us. Why does Germany have this ultra-low birth rate?

00:13Germany is really not unusual for countries in Europe and East Asia, which have hit modernity,

00:21which we can essentially define as high levels of urbanization, high levels of income,

00:26and at the same time see their fertility rates, the number of children per woman, go low and then very, very low.

00:34As people enter this kind of modern life, unless they have an ideology, a belief, a religion,

00:41that informs them that having children is the most important thing and they prioritize it,

00:46then whether it's Japan or China or Macedonia or Britain or Germany, the fertility rate goes low.

00:53Now, in Germany, one of the problems is not just that it's very low now,

00:57but it's been below most of the rest of the developed world for a long time.

01:02And that means that there are very few young people coming through to the workforce.

01:06So you've got to think about what is it now, what are we building up problematically for the future, which is ultra-low,

01:12and how low has it been for the last couple of generations, which means you've got lots and lots of old people,

01:18not enough young people coming into the workforce, too many people requiring pensions and health care,

01:23and not a lot of people paying tax.

01:25So if it's at the bottom line, obviously there are lots of different reasons,

01:29but if finances and economics is at the heart of it,

01:33surely the best way is for government to offer an incentive for people having a second and third child.

01:39Does that work?

01:41Well, first of all, the paradox is that as countries get richer, their fertility rates go down, generally.

01:47And then once they're low, the question is about their values rather than material wealth.

01:52Now, I think governments can do an awful lot.

01:54Governments can give child benefits.

01:56Governments can encourage women to combine education and working with childbearing by giving them rights in the workplace.

02:06There are a whole range of policies that governments can offer.

02:09But if that's not combined with a pronatal culture,

02:13if people have values and priorities that don't rate having children highly,

02:18then there's actually not much the government can do.

02:21It is important, however, that the government signals its intentions because that is a good start.

02:27Whether those policies are effective or not, it's at least a good start if the government says this matters to us.

02:33That's how you start to change the culture.

02:36How could this impact future migration patterns?

02:39We know that some countries in Africa, for example, still have high birth rates and they're living longer.

02:45So potentially there's a lot of people in Africa who could come to Europe to look after an aging population.

02:51Is that starting to happen?

02:53Well, it started out a long time ago in countries like Germany, Britain, France.

02:58We historically had a lot of immigration from other parts of Europe.

03:02In Britain, for example, from Ireland and Poland.

03:04Germany had a lot of immigration from Italy in the 50s and also from Turkey.

03:08But these are all countries which now have much lower fertility rates themselves.

03:13The living standard gap has closed.

03:15And so more and more countries who can afford to attract immigrants are having to attract them

03:21from fewer and fewer countries that still have a fertility rate.

03:25The trouble is that those countries with high fertility rates are increasingly poor.

03:30They're increasingly countries where there's very low levels of education and human development.

03:37And so what we're seeing in Europe, across Europe, it's not just Germany, is where there is mass immigration,

03:43it's from countries with very low levels of economic productivity.

03:47And so it might be plugging some of the gaps in the workforce, but it's not actually helping the economy as a whole.

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