Ask anyone and they will most likely agree to the following "everybody-knows-that":
- Mass migration into Europe, legal and illegal, combined with an eroding native population base, is transforming our ethnic, cultural, and religious identity.
- Europe's native population is in steady and serious decline from a falling birthrate, and that the aging population will place intolerable demands on governments to maintain public pension and health systems.
- Population growth in the developing world will continue at a high rate.
Some political parties are even founded on these assumptions.
But according to a recent extensive article published by the Wilson Center these assumptions "are highly questionable, they are not a reliable basis for serious policy decisions."
They support their claims with an impressive set of numbers.
Numbers on the surprising drop in birth rate in Islamic countries (except south of the Sahara), the birth rate growth in the EU and the USA. Measures that can mitigate the effects of an elder population, like working a little bit longer and having more women who work.
A good read for anyone who likes evidence based policies.
The birthrates of Muslim women in Europe--and around the world--have been falling significantly for some time. Data on birthrates among different religious groups in Europe are scarce, but they point in a clear direction. Between 1990 and 2005, for example, the fertility rate in the Netherlands for Moroccan-born women fell from 4.9 to 2.9, and for Turkish- born women from 3.2 to 1.9. In 1970, Turkish- born women in Germany had on average two children more than German- born women. By 1996, the difference had fallen to one child, and it has now dropped to half that number.
The falling fertility rates in large segments of the Islamic world have been matched by another significant shift: Across northern and western Europe, women have suddenly started having more babies. [.. ] Sweden's fertility rate jumped eight percent in 2004 and stayed put. Both Britain and France now project that their populations will rise from the current 60 million each to more than 75 million by mid century.
In Britain, the number of births rose in 2007 for the sixth year in a row. Britain's fertility rate has increased from 1.6 to 1.9 in just six years, with a striking contribution from women in their thirties and forties-- just the kind of hard-to-predict behavioral change that drives demographers wild. The fertility rate is at its highest level since 1980.
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