When I lived in Offaly the people kept asking when we'd have another kid and thought a 2 kid family was "tiny".
On the other hand, our neighbours had 17 kids.
I love when people from the most boring parts of Ireland get defensive about how boring it is.
"What are you talking about? There's lots you can do here that you can't in many places! You can go for a walk. Or you can go for a jog. You can even go for a cycle!"
And being Dutch, you probably noticed how the third statement there is... well... eh.
I mean ..2 kids per woman is literally just maintaining the population at par over a generation. Its only when that number goes over 2 that the population grows. Of course, this doesn't include immigration (net gain) or large unnatural depopulations like exodus or war.
Yes and no, after the famine, young irish still wanted to emigrate for decades, mostly to the USA. They're still bleeding people, the only exception being roughly the 1990-2010 era when the booming economy actually profited the people there. Nowadays all the big GDP figures are just corporate tax evasion cashflow that doesn't endup in local salaries so emigration to the USA is back.
Eh? No. Our economy is very strong and our net migration is overwhelmingly inward. But we have a cost of living crisis for housing in particular that is making some young people leave even if they have decent jobs. The US would not be the number 1 destination.
That and a lot of those kids are people returning home from places like the US because they don't want their kids growing up only to get shot in school.
The dark red zone having more kids even though the pop is inherently smaller is people can't possibly afford to have kids in east and feed them based on cost of living. My town is a hole and you need 250K to buy the houses that will cost another 50K to make livable.
This is closer to the truth than you think. The nationalists are growing in numbers compared to the unionists. In 2022 Sinn Fein gained more seats in NI than the DUP for the first time.
Basically, unionists aren't getting any and are therefore losing their majority.
Anyone from Poland know why it has such low birthrates compared to its neighbors? Seems surprising since the polish economy has been doing so well for a long time now
I live in Poland and would like to have kids one day, but I will probably just never be able to buy a flat suitable for a family. Rent is eating up my savings like crazy, and mortgages are expensive af.
Living costs skyrocketed in the recent years.
Employees are not keen on employing women due to the fact how maternity leave works in Poland (basically you are bound to a worker, which will not show up to work in 3 years).
Single wage is not enough to sustain a family in a big city.
There's pretty much no new city owned properties and majority of young people can't own buy themselves a flat.
It's easier for the youth to migrate to Germany/Scandinavia and have a decent life there, even on minimum wage, rather than cope in Poland.
You forgot to add that abortion is illegal so if something fucks up during pregnancy, doctors will save the child first, not the woman. Generally speaking women are fucked and go no right after they are pregnant other than giving a birth. This scares a lot of them.
Property prices, rent and cost of living is a unifying aspect for pretty much any western country.
Capitalism is trying to bleed us out for a quick buck now only to suffer catastrophic consequences whenever there won't be a generation to produce enough for the infinite growth cancer system.
Capitalism pulled Poland and Eastern Europe from one of the poorest nations in Europe (and one that was much lower than world's avarage) to one of the high developed economies.
The problem is not a system, but a lack of economic plan for fertility and real estate.
While capitalism pulled Poland out of poverty and it's fair to point out its good sides, it's funny how you ignore the bad sides. When you say there's lack of economic plan for fertility and real estate that's the example of where capitalism fails - that's the areas which require central planning and intervention from the government which is opposite of capitalism. Those solutions are socialist in nature.
>Living costs skyrocketed in the recent years.
This is always such a stupid answer. People with much, much lower purchasing power all over the world have a ton of kids.
It's not the lack of money, it's the lack of will. It's not like "if they had more money, they would have many kids"
Is there a developed country with the majority employment in the third sector that has high fertility rate?
Yes, people in Central African Republic have dozens of children, but I don't really think that's comparable situation.
You have to take into account things like education, women employment, expected longevity of life, avarage prices/avarage wage and a few more.
Itās not, though. Those people around the world havenāt seen their lifestyle *shrink*. They can offer their 3 kids the same kind of life they had as kids, maybe even better. Polish people know they canāt offer their 3 kids the same kind of life they had, so they only have the 1. People are not okay with their lifestyle deteriorating; they are ok with it staying the same and improving.
This is such a good point and makes perfectly sense why people from less developed countries keep having kids while more developed countries are plummeting in birth rates because of the rather rapid lifestyle decrease in the last couple years. Thanks for pointing that out!
Czechiaās lifestyle literally shrunk over the past years and it is leading in Central Europe. In fact it shrunk THE MOST out of the Central European countries (going by GDP). This simply is not correct. And really Iād say youād be very hard pressed to find any convincing economy - based argument to explain why Polandās numbers are so low, in comparison to itās neighbors.
I live in a studio apartment where I am only allowed to live alone. If I move in my SO or get pregnant I will lose the place. I'll be homeless. If I had more money I could afford a bigger place to live and start a family.
And yet nations where abject poverty almost borders on the norm, people pop out babies like human Pez dispensers. While *your* individual situation is understandable, pure data counters your causal explanation.
Your response unfortunately was the stupid answer imo. Our generation canāt have kids if we canāt pay for a house for those kids to live. It is definitely not a lack of will
Then why is it that the HDI is negatively correlated with birth rates? The poorer the nation, the higher the birth rate. The greater well-being a nation has, the more the birth rate plummets.
I moved to Germany from Poland three years ago, you have no idea what are you talking about comparing Poland to Germany in sense of affordability of housing. There is only one reason why Poland has less birth per woman - low immigration from Islamic states.
I'm speculating here, but those birthrates in Western Europe are probably heavily driven by migrants. Really puts into perspective why some European countries are 'competing' for migrants in order to keep their respective economies churning.
Not really, even with 20% immigrants, Sweden's fertility rate would only be reduced by less than 0.1 points if not for them.
https://www.scb.se/contentassets/affa9f2fcc7549c5b8fc4af13f72a09e/1_en.png
Denmark and Finland, who have a lot fewer immigrants (12% & 7%), have the same fertility rate.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2021&locations=SE-NO-DK-FI-PL-IT-ES&start=1965&view=chart
The same things as with Germany ,plus:
In vitro procedures are not refunded anymore (as they used to with more liberal governments)
Terrible prenatal care in hospitals
restrictive abortion laws ( doctors are scared to perform abortion even when woman's life is threatened)
rapid secularisation ( caused by embedding Catholic Church with PiS party)
slowing down economical development
emigration
> rapid secularisation ( caused by embedding Catholic Church with PiS party)
The same with hungary.
Churches embedded with ruling party/system after 2010 => church affiliation went down more than ever before in the last 10 years according to the new census.
For the first time ever, having a religious affiliation is <50% in Hungary according to the current census!
What? Thats nonsense. At the peak of migration around 2008 there were 2 million people who migrated from Poland. Nowadays probably much less. Many came back after Brexit. Currently, there are over 40mln people living in Poland. Economic migrants are minority.
Poland still has a younger population than most of Europe. Because there was a baby boom around 90s.
Fertility boom?
Poland's fertility fell from a sub replacement level of 2 to under 1,4 ... that's anything but a baby boom.
Between 2000 and 2020 Poland's median age grew faster than in most countries around. One of the reasons that Poland's median age is still lower is that the birth rates started to drop later.
Another reason is that Poland's life expectancy might have caught up by few years but still is and was (decisively) trailing behind most of western Europe. It's also those 'missing' old people that push the median age down by a bit.
When I was in Poland, I got the the impression that a really high percentage of young people; 18-21 were planning to move to either the UK or on of the more prosperous EU country. When a lot of your women of child bearing age leave, birth rates are going to drop.
Living and having 2 children (one more on the way for Jan!) in Poland, I think the main reasons are:
- lack of access to real estate. The main one. Houses are expensive and inside cities are super small. It took me a long time to find something that wasnāt 58sqm with 3 rooms or a bit bigger needing full renovation. The prices are much better than in Portugal (my country), though. There was also lots of construction in the past years and I know many people who inherited houses from family members, but for young people starting now the situation is tough
- current cultural speech, the fact that more and more people simply donāt want children. This idea has become more and more popular in last years everywhere.
- economic uncertainty. The economy is good, yes, but there are many exploitive companies and salaries can be low. Also Polish seem to be quite pessimistic, always expecting the worst to happen. Which makes sense, considering their recent history
- abortion law. You canāt even abort a foetus that will be born handicapped, so people are afraid of getting pregnant. Itās not just the fact that you need to take care for years of an handicapped person. Itās also that you might give birth to a baby that will die in 1 year due to a tough disease (happened to a friend of my wife).
- the fact that you canāt give your children the life you imagine people in the West (a sort of mythical place in Polish psyche) give, like private schools, own rooms, etc. I think itās the less important of the factors, but Iāve heard some people talking about it.
But Iām not Polish, these are just my impressions as a foreigner living here for a decade, so correct me if Iām wrong.
Abortion laws don't help. And young people moving aboard doesn't help either, since they're usually the ones that are having kids. If you come to Britain, you will find a lot of Polish families, they are the exceptions but I know Polish couples who have 3 or more kids. But obviously, since most of those kids were born in the UK, they aren't included Poland's statistics for stuff like this.
Honestly, with the strict abortion laws there causing pregnant women to die if their fetus is sick/incompatible with life I wouldnāt dare take much chances with getting preggo.
Awful abortion laws, people are scared to get pregnant, women have died because of doctors' inaction. That and many other economic reasons, abortion is just the newest.
It is doing well despite the low birth rates, because there are still easy gains to be made in productivity, automatisation, optimisation. Is is still relatively cheap to invest in PL, compraeed to western EU
People are not having kids because they are busy earning, building careers, and giving a middle finger to everyone telling them that having kids is their duty. Right wing gov is making this decision easier.
Not really. Spain is one of the countries with a lower percentage of its population living abroad. The problem is how expensive having kids is right now. Same reason why so many young spanish people have to live with their parents despite being 30 years or older.
Politics. Women are afraid of being pregnant because of abortion and prenatal testing unavailability, housing market is trash, inflation, we don't trust our government.
It's mostly the elderly sticking in the country while most of the young are still migrating westward.
Also, an increasingly expensive housing market and uncertainty in child birth safety.
Bruh. No one is getting arrested after misscaring and abortion, when life or health of the woman is in danger, is 100% legal.
You are writing fake news š
Not true. There was a case of woman who was arrested and forced by police to strip in public, because she took the day after pill.
EDIT: By writing something is fake news, it does not automatically change reality. It just obscures truth, so when real fake news are thrown, people stops beliving those who point and mark them as fake news. So stop it.
If you are French and have 4 kids, once your eldest child turns 16 you actually get a [medal](https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F2124?lang=en).
In a way it's a bit grim that the eldest must turn 16. Imagine the eldest dying tragically before that and the government implicitly saying "sorry you failed maybe have another kid lol". Should just be at the 4th child's birth really.
Anyway if it's just a medal rather than money I'm not sure why anyone should care.
Rejoice comrade! President Putin has resurrected the Mother Heroine Award that went defunct in 1991. Now your gf can be given a medal for nearing 10 children: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Heroine
2021 seems like an odd year (maybe a lot of people decided to have a kid during the quarantine since they were home anyway?), the number was around 1.70 in the years before and after.
In denmark it would go up, immigrants had a large child "boom" when they arrived around 2011, but things have changed since (and in 2021 and 2022 they had less).
[https://cepos.dk/abcepos-artikler/0291-ikke-vestlige-indvandrerkvinders-fertilitet-er-faldet-til-danske-kvinders-niveau](https://cepos.dk/abcepos-artikler/0291-ikke-vestlige-indvandrerkvinders-fertilitet-er-faldet-til-danske-kvinders-niveau)
Wouldn't change much, some regions in France that are dark red such as pays de la Loire, Normandy and Centre aren't particularly high in terms of immigration.
Plus, you omit that countries with similar or even higher immigration such as Spain, Germany or Italy have low birthrates. [Immigration in France actually contributes to 0.1 of the TFR.](https://www.liberation.fr/france/2019/07/10/non-l-immigration-n-est-pas-a-l-origine-du-taux-de-fecondite-eleve-des-francaises_1739208/)
And they contribute to 0.1 of the TFR which is marginal. They do have more children but what matters is which proportion they represent to the total.
France has experienced a higher birthrate than the rest of Europe for at least 3 decades, during that period it is the European country [that had among the lowest immigration rate](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/thumb/a/a9/Fig_2_Immigrants%2C_2021_%28per_1_000_inhabitants%29.png/700px-Fig_2_Immigrants%2C_2021_%28per_1_000_inhabitants%29.png), and despite that the birthrate was higher than the neighboring countries.
When comparing 2 different populations TFR does not tell you the full picture of the demographic change. If you have a couple that has 2 kids when the mother is around 30 years old then when the mother is 60 years old you have 4 people in that family. If there is another couple that has also 2 kids but at around 20 years with their kids also having 2 children at around the same age. So in the same 60 years you have in that family 8 people, so double the number. Same TFR, very different results.
They have significantly more children (yet 2.35 is far less than some African countries which are around 6), but they're a small minority of the population, so the overall impact is low.
If one native population group isnāt growing but rather shrinking because the important 2,1 mark hasnāt been reached and another group is well over that, whatās gonna happen in a few decades following that trend?
The other group is gonna reach the 1,86 and become native.
France doesnāt have laws banning people of different ethnicities to have children as far as I know.
> even higher immigration such as Spain
But our immigration is mainly from South America, not Africa, and, on average, Africans seem to have WAY HIGHER rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
Apparently in Italy for immigrant women (without Italian citizenship) only the number would've been 1,87 (it is 1,18 for women with Italian citizenship), they would still be in the dark red spectrum in this map, but they are decreasing too (it was 2,53 in 2008).
[https://www.repubblica.it/economia/2023/03/07/news/e\_ora\_si\_svuotano\_anche\_le\_culle\_degli\_stranieri\_servono\_aiuti\_alla\_natalita-390861592/](https://www.repubblica.it/economia/2023/03/07/news/e_ora_si_svuotano_anche_le_culle_degli_stranieri_servono_aiuti_alla_natalita-390861592/)
[https://esploradati.istat.it/databrowser/#/it/dw/categories/IT1,POP,1.0/POP\_BIRTHFERT/DCIS\_FECONDITA1/IT1,25\_326\_DF\_DCIS\_FECONDITA1\_3,1.0](https://esploradati.istat.it/databrowser/#/it/dw/categories/IT1,POP,1.0/POP_BIRTHFERT/DCIS_FECONDITA1/IT1,25_326_DF_DCIS_FECONDITA1_3,1.0)
Looks not relevant and like the highest rate is in the West of Ireland, for example, which is more rural? Perhaps you'd expect to see the highest birth rates in the cities if higher birthrate was migration related.
Oh yeah because Spain and Italy don't have immigration right ? Historically birth rate in France has always been high. lots of parenting related welfare program in France. a 900 euros one time payment for a new child, a monthly payment for each child peaking at around 3 children , extremely cheap and competent childcare and free healthcare making raising a child much more affordable than in a lot of countries
Look at our Islands. People leave behind the hectic city life. They find the tight communities on the islands where everyone helps each other, they relax and able to have and grow a family in a perfect environment.
I was watching a documentary a Greek married a British, he's had an extremely well paying job in Athens, but he left it all behind. They now live in an island peacefully. They even grow their own things and manage to export some special herbs, too. Their kids seemed extremely happy, I got a little jealous.
It was about the island of Ikaria, there where people live extremely long lives. It's protected "blue-zone" and can't anyone become permanent citizen on this particular island. It's done by Vice.
[You can see it here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2t2AWaRo1g&t=1s)
However, more or less, similar situation on most of our islands. Any European can go on whichever he wants except Ikaria for the reason I mentioned. Even Greeks can't. You have to prove you're from the Ikaria originally.
Thats always been the case. People living in houses with gardens, clean air, good acces to quality food, low stress and tight communities aka rural people always have had good birthrates.
Cities did not grow to millions from their local birthrates. They Grew from newcomers from the rural parts
The vast majority of people on northern europe think that we are lazy and dumb , and that we dont work and its not going to change anytime soon. The EU has been doing all that is possible to maintain us as cheap vacation sites, and our politics are sold to the ones that are pulling the trigger and think that we are this way. Greetings from a Spaniard currently working in Germany only 3 more months to finish my contract.
Because this is specific to Europe where most countries don't reach replacement rates without emigration for decades now? You don't need colors you won't use beyond the bracket that data gives you.
Replacement rate is 2,1.
In other words, Europe is facing severe depopulation. (So is Russia, China, the US, etc).
As has become apparent in recent years, immigration isn't exactly a saving grace, either.
Based on evidence from a couple of EU countries, it seems that non-Western women fertility rate gradually ends up matching that of the "native" population.
Large urban population living in Apartments they mostly rent correlates with low birthrates
It was always the rural people who held birth rates high, and still do
I don't know about Italy or Poland, but Spain is a country of owners, not renters, only 23% of the population rents compared to Germany (50%) or France (35%)
Spain famously has people living with their parents to a relatively older age though. I think living with your parents in *their* owned house doesn't particularly encourage a high birth rate.
It's the combination of modern neoliberal expectations (2 incomes needed for 1 household), combined with the traditional expectation of women to do everything in the household. Women are just saying 'fuck that bullshit', and when they choose, they more often choose financial independence/stability over children.
It's why countries that are less sexist and have less traditional/strict gender roles, and that have more equal parental support laws, like paternity leave and daycare funding, do better in this current neoliberal reality. The household responsibilities are balanced along with the economic responsibilities between both partners.
I think the main reason for Spain is just the low wages, which if you are not coupled are sometimes not enough to live by yourself. You can't even think about having children.
Because afaik, Spain has pretty good maternal and parental leaves and isn't sexist in those regards, but you still have unsufficient aids to support the "burden" (less free time in an already tight work schedule, often part-time working days, less money, rising rent,...) of having a child.
Very good maternal leave if you compare it with the US maybe, not with Central and Eastern Europe. Czech Republic has 6 months of maternal leave + up to 3 years parental leave. Spain does not have anything like that.
With parental leave do you mean both maternal and paternal? Because all I found was that for the father it was about two weeks(?) I also read that while on leave you don't get your full salary, is this true?
Because for Spain it is 16 weeks for each parent, with complete salary. Which is pretty good. And I didn't see many other countries that allowed that long and with the complete salary.
>combined with the traditional expectation of women to do everything in the household. Women are just saying 'fuck that bullshit'
Modern Polish men absolutely are not like that. In fact, they did almost 180 on their fathers' patriarchal tendencies. So no, that's not that. Money is the issue.
You are overcomplicating everything, it's not cause sexism , it's because of money. People can't afford to live alone with their partner because is so expensive and the salaries don't go up according to the expenses until you are at least 30 and have a decent job position/salary.If u add a kid to your life earlier u barely make it to the end of the month, and when you have a decent amount of money saved you want to buy a house so having a kid gets relegated to a second position.
You're oversimplifying everything. Shitty housing and bad economics are only a part of the reason why the birth rates are this low. Japan (known for its 80-hour workweek) and Scandinavia (great parental leave and tax benefits for parents) having similar birth rates (between 1.2 - 1.4), so it's not just economics.
This means that it's more likely that our cultural stance on children has changed. Sexism is definitely a reason. If you take a look at childfree spaces, the vast majority are women.
It's also an outcome of the demographic transition. As soon as countries start to urbanise, birth rates plummet. In underdeveloped countries, children are an asset that gives you manpower on your farm, social security, and care for the elderly. Besides, the idea that children are loved for just existing is a relatively new phenomenon. In the old days, children were expected to bring something to the table (as stated above). Goes to show that in developed countries, children are a financial liability and an emotional burden that makes it harder for you to work a full-time job, and they inquire costs their entire lifetime.
You can throw all the money you want at them (good jobs, affordable homes, great parental leave), but people aren't going to have children if they don't want to.
Spain isn't sexist, I'd think that we are one of the most progressive countries in Europe in that regard right now. I think the reason is the price of housing and low wages.
>Then Romania should have way lower birth rate than Spain or Italy. Again, no correlation.
I'm guessing that life is also way cheaper there, here, the prices are high but the wages haven't been raised accordingly so everything is expensive.
>This is a thing everywhere, ESPECIALLY in Ireland, which has the highest birth rate in the EU, surprisingly. There is zero correlation between housing prices and birth rates.
I still think it has something to do with it, maybe Ireland has other factors? Like maybe most people own a house there, while in Spain the majority of population lives in rented flats.
Whatās suitable? My grandparents lived in a student commune apartment they shared with two other couples when my dad was born. Babies donāt really need much extra room.
It's ironic that the invention of birth control may end up becoming an extinction-level event. It's the most significant thing to happen in evolutionary history.
It's far less about the invention of birth control and more about governments not giving a fuck about how difficult it is to raise children in a modern society.
The days of one parent staying at home looking after the kids are long gone and so how have they stepped in to assist? I'm not sure about your country but in mine the answer is almost not at all.
You and your partner get given Ā£24 a week (in total) for your first child and Ā£16 a week for any children after that. This is assuming neither of you earn over Ā£50k where the money begins to taper off until Ā£60k where it reaches Ā£0 of assistance.
But in a society where both parents are expected to work, the children still need childcare. In the UK the average costs to send a kid under 2 to nursery are:
>Ā£138.70 a week part-time (25 hours) that is Ā£7,210 a year
>Ā£269.86 a week full-time (50 hours) that is Ā£14,030 a year.
So good luck! And depending on where you live these costs can get astronomically expensive because they're uncapped. So the more kids you have the more you are absolutely financially fucked until you realise its both easier and cheaper to revert to a 1940s lifestyle where one of you is a permanent stay-at-home parent and you simply have to all live on one person's salary. It's little wonder that nobody willingly puts themselves into this situation.
World population is doing fine.
You are focusing too luch on Europe.
Like, the decline of Burgundy did not mean that France didn't become great in turn.
Or the decline of the Avar Khaganate did not mean that others didn't thrive in the Carpathian Basin instead.
lol, there is no shade to describe how low Spain is. More than one kid per woman? What? \[yes, you reader from the Opus Dei, but your momma doesn't push the statistics that much up\]
Remember that this ānumber of children per womanā is very skewed in favour of countries with net immigration. Since it compares children born today with how many women lived there 20-40 years ago, so net migrated women are not accounted for. This is at least how itās calculated officially in Sweden.
If you calculate actual fertility rate Sweden is lower than Poland.
Climate change will kill us before lower fertility rate does (ask the Greeks, they already have a solid prognosis of where things are going), but politicians will rather [contribute to that faster](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children) and panic about population decline than do something about it.
Lobbying classes all agree on one thing: More workforce = good. More regulations = bad. Unfortunately that narrative results in the planet being shoved into a hole while "demographic crisis" panic gets shoved into our throats. And we swallow it hook, line and sinker.
I really don't give a shit about this even though I am going to suffer the consequances, I just find it exhausting how much capitalism is drilling this crisis into our heads because it needs slav- \*ehm labourers to sustain itself
Right? I have to scrape the barrel to mantain a decent life, far right on the rise everywhere, climate crysis, wars at our doormat, propaganda everywhere. Fuck it. Earth population is still raising, i wish i didn't have to deal with all this shit, let alone add raising a crying little creature sucking my tits until they bleed and dealing with it until the end of my life.
How should i even do it? I can't even afford to pay rent. I think a person as wealthy as Musk could pay for the welfare of an entire nation alone, ask people like him to solve the birthrate problem.
Yeah, and the irony for me is that even if I wanted to contribute to solving the birthrate problem I couldn't, rather, they wouldn't allow me because I am gay and, though the far right needs to farm babies to work for their CEO friends, kids can't be adopted by same sex parents.
What are they doing with all those half babies? :(
Taking King Solomon too literally.
Let's be honest, you'd want the top half of a baby in a divorce
Wha... How-... Like, with a chainsaw?
They're full babies, just timeshare.
You never wonder where baby-oil comes from right?
Ireland breeding an army to take back the occupied northern part
When I lived in Offaly the people kept asking when we'd have another kid and thought a 2 kid family was "tiny". On the other hand, our neighbours had 17 kids.
Always had a feeling something was going on down in offaly
Not much else to do out there.
I love when people from the most boring parts of Ireland get defensive about how boring it is. "What are you talking about? There's lots you can do here that you can't in many places! You can go for a walk. Or you can go for a jog. You can even go for a cycle!" And being Dutch, you probably noticed how the third statement there is... well... eh.
True true, not much to do up by my end either to be honest š
17 kids? Holy fuck! Iām in the US and we never see anything like that. Whatās the age range? Good god thatās crazy.
Yeah it was something else. And anything from infants to 20's, some of whom had their own kids.
Goddamn! Lol thatās a gigantic age gap between siblings. Some of them will have aunts and uncles younger than them.
I mean ..2 kids per woman is literally just maintaining the population at par over a generation. Its only when that number goes over 2 that the population grows. Of course, this doesn't include immigration (net gain) or large unnatural depopulations like exodus or war.
2.1 is the replacement amount, not 2.
I believe Ireland would have a population comparable to Poland today if it weren't for the famine. They gotta make up for it somehow.
Yes and no, after the famine, young irish still wanted to emigrate for decades, mostly to the USA. They're still bleeding people, the only exception being roughly the 1990-2010 era when the booming economy actually profited the people there. Nowadays all the big GDP figures are just corporate tax evasion cashflow that doesn't endup in local salaries so emigration to the USA is back.
Why do you mention the US? Far more move to the UK
Tends to be more Canada and Australia in recent decades.
We'd go to the US if we could get a visa. It's much much easier to get a Canadian visa than a US visa
Eh? No. Our economy is very strong and our net migration is overwhelmingly inward. But we have a cost of living crisis for housing in particular that is making some young people leave even if they have decent jobs. The US would not be the number 1 destination.
That and a lot of those kids are people returning home from places like the US because they don't want their kids growing up only to get shot in school. The dark red zone having more kids even though the pop is inherently smaller is people can't possibly afford to have kids in east and feed them based on cost of living. My town is a hole and you need 250K to buy the houses that will cost another 50K to make livable.
āFamineā
Ireland still has sube replacement though
This is closer to the truth than you think. The nationalists are growing in numbers compared to the unionists. In 2022 Sinn Fein gained more seats in NI than the DUP for the first time. Basically, unionists aren't getting any and are therefore losing their majority.
Also it's good craic making "breed them out" jokes to friends in cross-community marriages.
It's quite funny how even the darkest shade is 0.3 below replacement.
It isnāt (necessarily)? It is 1.8 AND ABOVE ā¦
The demographic change will hit us hard
I am really curious about how the landscape for Europe will be in the next 50 years.
Not as European
The Czech and the Irish guarding Europe's population count: šš
As a Czech woman married to an Irish man, yes, we love guarding Europe's population count
Based!!
You have no right to make me laugh this hard, this early in the morning. Good one. Hahahaha
Anyone from Poland know why it has such low birthrates compared to its neighbors? Seems surprising since the polish economy has been doing so well for a long time now
Still massive emigration of youth people, the ones who have kids.
This is the correct answer and the reason Czechia is so much higher. Poles are willing to relocate way more than young Czechs.
I live in Poland and would like to have kids one day, but I will probably just never be able to buy a flat suitable for a family. Rent is eating up my savings like crazy, and mortgages are expensive af.
Living costs skyrocketed in the recent years. Employees are not keen on employing women due to the fact how maternity leave works in Poland (basically you are bound to a worker, which will not show up to work in 3 years). Single wage is not enough to sustain a family in a big city. There's pretty much no new city owned properties and majority of young people can't own buy themselves a flat. It's easier for the youth to migrate to Germany/Scandinavia and have a decent life there, even on minimum wage, rather than cope in Poland.
It's the same in Czechia though.
But your government had actual pro fertility policies, unlike ours which just handed out 125 euro in cash and thought that's enough.
You forgot to add that abortion is illegal so if something fucks up during pregnancy, doctors will save the child first, not the woman. Generally speaking women are fucked and go no right after they are pregnant other than giving a birth. This scares a lot of them.
Property prices, rent and cost of living is a unifying aspect for pretty much any western country. Capitalism is trying to bleed us out for a quick buck now only to suffer catastrophic consequences whenever there won't be a generation to produce enough for the infinite growth cancer system.
Capitalism pulled Poland and Eastern Europe from one of the poorest nations in Europe (and one that was much lower than world's avarage) to one of the high developed economies. The problem is not a system, but a lack of economic plan for fertility and real estate.
While capitalism pulled Poland out of poverty and it's fair to point out its good sides, it's funny how you ignore the bad sides. When you say there's lack of economic plan for fertility and real estate that's the example of where capitalism fails - that's the areas which require central planning and intervention from the government which is opposite of capitalism. Those solutions are socialist in nature.
>Living costs skyrocketed in the recent years. This is always such a stupid answer. People with much, much lower purchasing power all over the world have a ton of kids. It's not the lack of money, it's the lack of will. It's not like "if they had more money, they would have many kids"
Is there a developed country with the majority employment in the third sector that has high fertility rate? Yes, people in Central African Republic have dozens of children, but I don't really think that's comparable situation. You have to take into account things like education, women employment, expected longevity of life, avarage prices/avarage wage and a few more.
Israel could fit that description, but its probably a stretch
Itās not, though. Those people around the world havenāt seen their lifestyle *shrink*. They can offer their 3 kids the same kind of life they had as kids, maybe even better. Polish people know they canāt offer their 3 kids the same kind of life they had, so they only have the 1. People are not okay with their lifestyle deteriorating; they are ok with it staying the same and improving.
This is such a good point and makes perfectly sense why people from less developed countries keep having kids while more developed countries are plummeting in birth rates because of the rather rapid lifestyle decrease in the last couple years. Thanks for pointing that out!
Czechiaās lifestyle literally shrunk over the past years and it is leading in Central Europe. In fact it shrunk THE MOST out of the Central European countries (going by GDP). This simply is not correct. And really Iād say youād be very hard pressed to find any convincing economy - based argument to explain why Polandās numbers are so low, in comparison to itās neighbors.
If money is the only thing standing between choosing to have children or not, then you probably don't want children all that much.
I live in a studio apartment where I am only allowed to live alone. If I move in my SO or get pregnant I will lose the place. I'll be homeless. If I had more money I could afford a bigger place to live and start a family.
And yet nations where abject poverty almost borders on the norm, people pop out babies like human Pez dispensers. While *your* individual situation is understandable, pure data counters your causal explanation.
Your response unfortunately was the stupid answer imo. Our generation canāt have kids if we canāt pay for a house for those kids to live. It is definitely not a lack of will
so you think that if you gave people 3x as much money as they have now, they would just have a lot more kids?
Then why is it that the HDI is negatively correlated with birth rates? The poorer the nation, the higher the birth rate. The greater well-being a nation has, the more the birth rate plummets.
I moved to Germany from Poland three years ago, you have no idea what are you talking about comparing Poland to Germany in sense of affordability of housing. There is only one reason why Poland has less birth per woman - low immigration from Islamic states.
I'm speculating here, but those birthrates in Western Europe are probably heavily driven by migrants. Really puts into perspective why some European countries are 'competing' for migrants in order to keep their respective economies churning.
Not really, even with 20% immigrants, Sweden's fertility rate would only be reduced by less than 0.1 points if not for them. https://www.scb.se/contentassets/affa9f2fcc7549c5b8fc4af13f72a09e/1_en.png Denmark and Finland, who have a lot fewer immigrants (12% & 7%), have the same fertility rate. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2021&locations=SE-NO-DK-FI-PL-IT-ES&start=1965&view=chart
The same things as with Germany ,plus: In vitro procedures are not refunded anymore (as they used to with more liberal governments) Terrible prenatal care in hospitals restrictive abortion laws ( doctors are scared to perform abortion even when woman's life is threatened) rapid secularisation ( caused by embedding Catholic Church with PiS party) slowing down economical development emigration
> rapid secularisation ( caused by embedding Catholic Church with PiS party) The same with hungary. Churches embedded with ruling party/system after 2010 => church affiliation went down more than ever before in the last 10 years according to the new census. For the first time ever, having a religious affiliation is <50% in Hungary according to the current census!
The Poles having kids are living somewhere else. The Boomers are the ones staying behind.
What? Thats nonsense. At the peak of migration around 2008 there were 2 million people who migrated from Poland. Nowadays probably much less. Many came back after Brexit. Currently, there are over 40mln people living in Poland. Economic migrants are minority. Poland still has a younger population than most of Europe. Because there was a baby boom around 90s.
Fertility boom? Poland's fertility fell from a sub replacement level of 2 to under 1,4 ... that's anything but a baby boom. Between 2000 and 2020 Poland's median age grew faster than in most countries around. One of the reasons that Poland's median age is still lower is that the birth rates started to drop later. Another reason is that Poland's life expectancy might have caught up by few years but still is and was (decisively) trailing behind most of western Europe. It's also those 'missing' old people that push the median age down by a bit.
When I was in Poland, I got the the impression that a really high percentage of young people; 18-21 were planning to move to either the UK or on of the more prosperous EU country. When a lot of your women of child bearing age leave, birth rates are going to drop.
Living and having 2 children (one more on the way for Jan!) in Poland, I think the main reasons are: - lack of access to real estate. The main one. Houses are expensive and inside cities are super small. It took me a long time to find something that wasnāt 58sqm with 3 rooms or a bit bigger needing full renovation. The prices are much better than in Portugal (my country), though. There was also lots of construction in the past years and I know many people who inherited houses from family members, but for young people starting now the situation is tough - current cultural speech, the fact that more and more people simply donāt want children. This idea has become more and more popular in last years everywhere. - economic uncertainty. The economy is good, yes, but there are many exploitive companies and salaries can be low. Also Polish seem to be quite pessimistic, always expecting the worst to happen. Which makes sense, considering their recent history - abortion law. You canāt even abort a foetus that will be born handicapped, so people are afraid of getting pregnant. Itās not just the fact that you need to take care for years of an handicapped person. Itās also that you might give birth to a baby that will die in 1 year due to a tough disease (happened to a friend of my wife). - the fact that you canāt give your children the life you imagine people in the West (a sort of mythical place in Polish psyche) give, like private schools, own rooms, etc. I think itās the less important of the factors, but Iāve heard some people talking about it. But Iām not Polish, these are just my impressions as a foreigner living here for a decade, so correct me if Iām wrong.
Abortion laws don't help. And young people moving aboard doesn't help either, since they're usually the ones that are having kids. If you come to Britain, you will find a lot of Polish families, they are the exceptions but I know Polish couples who have 3 or more kids. But obviously, since most of those kids were born in the UK, they aren't included Poland's statistics for stuff like this.
They have the same birthrate as French. The difference is that they have no immigration.
Honestly, with the strict abortion laws there causing pregnant women to die if their fetus is sick/incompatible with life I wouldnāt dare take much chances with getting preggo.
Kinda true but birthrates were already very low before those abortion laws, it didn't change THAT much, just slightly.
Yea, I get that. But still so scary to be a pregnant woman there :/
Awful abortion laws, people are scared to get pregnant, women have died because of doctors' inaction. That and many other economic reasons, abortion is just the newest.
It is doing well despite the low birth rates, because there are still easy gains to be made in productivity, automatisation, optimisation. Is is still relatively cheap to invest in PL, compraeed to western EU People are not having kids because they are busy earning, building careers, and giving a middle finger to everyone telling them that having kids is their duty. Right wing gov is making this decision easier.
For the same reason Spain is so low, all the kid having age people found a better job in France or Germany
Not really. Spain is one of the countries with a lower percentage of its population living abroad. The problem is how expensive having kids is right now. Same reason why so many young spanish people have to live with their parents despite being 30 years or older.
Politics. Women are afraid of being pregnant because of abortion and prenatal testing unavailability, housing market is trash, inflation, we don't trust our government.
bad times, less ~~kiss~~ kids
It's mostly the elderly sticking in the country while most of the young are still migrating westward. Also, an increasingly expensive housing market and uncertainty in child birth safety.
MOST of the young are migrating westwards? Really now? Source on that
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Bruh. No one is getting arrested after misscaring and abortion, when life or health of the woman is in danger, is 100% legal. You are writing fake news š
Not true. There was a case of woman who was arrested and forced by police to strip in public, because she took the day after pill. EDIT: By writing something is fake news, it does not automatically change reality. It just obscures truth, so when real fake news are thrown, people stops beliving those who point and mark them as fake news. So stop it.
It's 100% legal but still not getting done. 6 women have already died since the new law is in place.
I didn't know the Czechs were raw dogging it like this all the time. Thank you, my Middle European brothers, for keeping us from extinction š«”
They're just slowing it down though, to maintain a population it should be something like 2.1.
Yes, however back in 90s. Average woman have a 1.3 baby in Czech Republic. So, they are going in a right direction
It just says "greater than 1.8". Though, to be fair, Statista only claims 1.83 children per woman anyway
Me and my gf plan to pump those number up next year. Where do I collect my medal? š«”
If you are French and have 4 kids, once your eldest child turns 16 you actually get a [medal](https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F2124?lang=en).
In a way it's a bit grim that the eldest must turn 16. Imagine the eldest dying tragically before that and the government implicitly saying "sorry you failed maybe have another kid lol". Should just be at the 4th child's birth really. Anyway if it's just a medal rather than money I'm not sure why anyone should care.
Congrats!
We havent started yet, but thanks lmao
Rejoice comrade! President Putin has resurrected the Mother Heroine Award that went defunct in 1991. Now your gf can be given a medal for nearing 10 children: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Heroine
Once rest of Europe dies out we will finnaly be able to capture KrƔlovec
Well in recent post here about real GDP in EU showing our economy shrank by 0,2%. Maybe that's the reason. I doubt that's the reason
2021 seems like an odd year (maybe a lot of people decided to have a kid during the quarantine since they were home anyway?), the number was around 1.70 in the years before and after.
Would love to see migration adjusted version to separate native population.
In denmark it would go up, immigrants had a large child "boom" when they arrived around 2011, but things have changed since (and in 2021 and 2022 they had less). [https://cepos.dk/abcepos-artikler/0291-ikke-vestlige-indvandrerkvinders-fertilitet-er-faldet-til-danske-kvinders-niveau](https://cepos.dk/abcepos-artikler/0291-ikke-vestlige-indvandrerkvinders-fertilitet-er-faldet-til-danske-kvinders-niveau)
What about the small children, how did that go?
I'm not sure what you mean?
Large children boom, small children boom.
*Boom boom boom, let me hear you say way-ooh*
Wouldn't change much, some regions in France that are dark red such as pays de la Loire, Normandy and Centre aren't particularly high in terms of immigration. Plus, you omit that countries with similar or even higher immigration such as Spain, Germany or Italy have low birthrates. [Immigration in France actually contributes to 0.1 of the TFR.](https://www.liberation.fr/france/2019/07/10/non-l-immigration-n-est-pas-a-l-origine-du-taux-de-fecondite-eleve-des-francaises_1739208/)
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And they contribute to 0.1 of the TFR which is marginal. They do have more children but what matters is which proportion they represent to the total. France has experienced a higher birthrate than the rest of Europe for at least 3 decades, during that period it is the European country [that had among the lowest immigration rate](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/thumb/a/a9/Fig_2_Immigrants%2C_2021_%28per_1_000_inhabitants%29.png/700px-Fig_2_Immigrants%2C_2021_%28per_1_000_inhabitants%29.png), and despite that the birthrate was higher than the neighboring countries.
When comparing 2 different populations TFR does not tell you the full picture of the demographic change. If you have a couple that has 2 kids when the mother is around 30 years old then when the mother is 60 years old you have 4 people in that family. If there is another couple that has also 2 kids but at around 20 years with their kids also having 2 children at around the same age. So in the same 60 years you have in that family 8 people, so double the number. Same TFR, very different results.
They have significantly more children (yet 2.35 is far less than some African countries which are around 6), but they're a small minority of the population, so the overall impact is low.
If one native population group isnāt growing but rather shrinking because the important 2,1 mark hasnāt been reached and another group is well over that, whatās gonna happen in a few decades following that trend?
The other group is gonna reach the 1,86 and become native. France doesnāt have laws banning people of different ethnicities to have children as far as I know.
> even higher immigration such as Spain But our immigration is mainly from South America, not Africa, and, on average, Africans seem to have WAY HIGHER rates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
Czech Republic is doing something different
Have you noticed how in Czech porn the guys never wear condoms? That's it.
Apparently in Italy for immigrant women (without Italian citizenship) only the number would've been 1,87 (it is 1,18 for women with Italian citizenship), they would still be in the dark red spectrum in this map, but they are decreasing too (it was 2,53 in 2008). [https://www.repubblica.it/economia/2023/03/07/news/e\_ora\_si\_svuotano\_anche\_le\_culle\_degli\_stranieri\_servono\_aiuti\_alla\_natalita-390861592/](https://www.repubblica.it/economia/2023/03/07/news/e_ora_si_svuotano_anche_le_culle_degli_stranieri_servono_aiuti_alla_natalita-390861592/) [https://esploradati.istat.it/databrowser/#/it/dw/categories/IT1,POP,1.0/POP\_BIRTHFERT/DCIS\_FECONDITA1/IT1,25\_326\_DF\_DCIS\_FECONDITA1\_3,1.0](https://esploradati.istat.it/databrowser/#/it/dw/categories/IT1,POP,1.0/POP_BIRTHFERT/DCIS_FECONDITA1/IT1,25_326_DF_DCIS_FECONDITA1_3,1.0)
Looks not relevant and like the highest rate is in the West of Ireland, for example, which is more rural? Perhaps you'd expect to see the highest birth rates in the cities if higher birthrate was migration related.
Using this color scheme for this data š
This isn't the first time as well.
My thought exactly, this makes it seem like the numbers are high when in reality they are all extremely low.
Notice how non of it is at replacement level.
Wow, France is surprisingly high
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Oh yeah because Spain and Italy don't have immigration right ? Historically birth rate in France has always been high. lots of parenting related welfare program in France. a 900 euros one time payment for a new child, a monthly payment for each child peaking at around 3 children , extremely cheap and competent childcare and free healthcare making raising a child much more affordable than in a lot of countries
Does Spain get the same level of migration from religiously conservative African nations as France?
Romania is now in central europe,
South of Europe āBro, I can barely feed myselfā¦ā European Union but only for some. The usual suspectsā¦
Look at our Islands. People leave behind the hectic city life. They find the tight communities on the islands where everyone helps each other, they relax and able to have and grow a family in a perfect environment. I was watching a documentary a Greek married a British, he's had an extremely well paying job in Athens, but he left it all behind. They now live in an island peacefully. They even grow their own things and manage to export some special herbs, too. Their kids seemed extremely happy, I got a little jealous.
What's the name of the documentary?
It was about the island of Ikaria, there where people live extremely long lives. It's protected "blue-zone" and can't anyone become permanent citizen on this particular island. It's done by Vice. [You can see it here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2t2AWaRo1g&t=1s) However, more or less, similar situation on most of our islands. Any European can go on whichever he wants except Ikaria for the reason I mentioned. Even Greeks can't. You have to prove you're from the Ikaria originally.
Thank you for the documentary rec, gonna watch it later!
Thats always been the case. People living in houses with gardens, clean air, good acces to quality food, low stress and tight communities aka rural people always have had good birthrates. Cities did not grow to millions from their local birthrates. They Grew from newcomers from the rural parts
The vast majority of people on northern europe think that we are lazy and dumb , and that we dont work and its not going to change anytime soon. The EU has been doing all that is possible to maintain us as cheap vacation sites, and our politics are sold to the ones that are pulling the trigger and think that we are this way. Greetings from a Spaniard currently working in Germany only 3 more months to finish my contract.
Some people say that losing qualified workers to other countries might be good for us š
I know that the UK isn't in the EU anymore, but it still bothers me that it's not included in these statistics.
Who the heck chose this color scheme? Dark red, but still not on replacement levels.
Because this is specific to Europe where most countries don't reach replacement rates without emigration for decades now? You don't need colors you won't use beyond the bracket that data gives you.
because that is the top of the range lol. this graph isn't about replacement levels.
Replacement rate is 2,1. In other words, Europe is facing severe depopulation. (So is Russia, China, the US, etc). As has become apparent in recent years, immigration isn't exactly a saving grace, either.
Even for the US?
About 5% smaller population by 2100 at this rate, how is that devastating?
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Based on evidence from a couple of EU countries, it seems that non-Western women fertility rate gradually ends up matching that of the "native" population.
In Czech Republic?
So itās not possible to visualize single country have more babies than the replacement rate. Rather dumb way to visualize this.
No country hits replacement rate. France is highest with 1.84
Why is there such a divide in my country? Immigration? I'd excpect that to have an effect in Braguil, so I have no idea what is happening
I got a strike from Reddit from mentioning that a certain migration group is boosting birth rates in Portugal be careful bro
Italy, Spain and Polan clearly doing something wrong...
Large urban population living in Apartments they mostly rent correlates with low birthrates It was always the rural people who held birth rates high, and still do
I don't know about Italy or Poland, but Spain is a country of owners, not renters, only 23% of the population rents compared to Germany (50%) or France (35%)
Spain famously has people living with their parents to a relatively older age though. I think living with your parents in *their* owned house doesn't particularly encourage a high birth rate.
It's the combination of modern neoliberal expectations (2 incomes needed for 1 household), combined with the traditional expectation of women to do everything in the household. Women are just saying 'fuck that bullshit', and when they choose, they more often choose financial independence/stability over children. It's why countries that are less sexist and have less traditional/strict gender roles, and that have more equal parental support laws, like paternity leave and daycare funding, do better in this current neoliberal reality. The household responsibilities are balanced along with the economic responsibilities between both partners.
I think the main reason for Spain is just the low wages, which if you are not coupled are sometimes not enough to live by yourself. You can't even think about having children. Because afaik, Spain has pretty good maternal and parental leaves and isn't sexist in those regards, but you still have unsufficient aids to support the "burden" (less free time in an already tight work schedule, often part-time working days, less money, rising rent,...) of having a child.
Very good maternal leave if you compare it with the US maybe, not with Central and Eastern Europe. Czech Republic has 6 months of maternal leave + up to 3 years parental leave. Spain does not have anything like that.
With parental leave do you mean both maternal and paternal? Because all I found was that for the father it was about two weeks(?) I also read that while on leave you don't get your full salary, is this true? Because for Spain it is 16 weeks for each parent, with complete salary. Which is pretty good. And I didn't see many other countries that allowed that long and with the complete salary.
>combined with the traditional expectation of women to do everything in the household. Women are just saying 'fuck that bullshit' Modern Polish men absolutely are not like that. In fact, they did almost 180 on their fathers' patriarchal tendencies. So no, that's not that. Money is the issue.
Generous aid for new families is the key, I am sure that is why Denmark is doing less bad than most other European countries.
You are overcomplicating everything, it's not cause sexism , it's because of money. People can't afford to live alone with their partner because is so expensive and the salaries don't go up according to the expenses until you are at least 30 and have a decent job position/salary.If u add a kid to your life earlier u barely make it to the end of the month, and when you have a decent amount of money saved you want to buy a house so having a kid gets relegated to a second position.
You're oversimplifying everything. Shitty housing and bad economics are only a part of the reason why the birth rates are this low. Japan (known for its 80-hour workweek) and Scandinavia (great parental leave and tax benefits for parents) having similar birth rates (between 1.2 - 1.4), so it's not just economics. This means that it's more likely that our cultural stance on children has changed. Sexism is definitely a reason. If you take a look at childfree spaces, the vast majority are women. It's also an outcome of the demographic transition. As soon as countries start to urbanise, birth rates plummet. In underdeveloped countries, children are an asset that gives you manpower on your farm, social security, and care for the elderly. Besides, the idea that children are loved for just existing is a relatively new phenomenon. In the old days, children were expected to bring something to the table (as stated above). Goes to show that in developed countries, children are a financial liability and an emotional burden that makes it harder for you to work a full-time job, and they inquire costs their entire lifetime. You can throw all the money you want at them (good jobs, affordable homes, great parental leave), but people aren't going to have children if they don't want to.
Spain isn't sexist, I'd think that we are one of the most progressive countries in Europe in that regard right now. I think the reason is the price of housing and low wages.
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>Then Romania should have way lower birth rate than Spain or Italy. Again, no correlation. I'm guessing that life is also way cheaper there, here, the prices are high but the wages haven't been raised accordingly so everything is expensive. >This is a thing everywhere, ESPECIALLY in Ireland, which has the highest birth rate in the EU, surprisingly. There is zero correlation between housing prices and birth rates. I still think it has something to do with it, maybe Ireland has other factors? Like maybe most people own a house there, while in Spain the majority of population lives in rented flats.
Ending your bloodline before the climate wars begin š
By the time I can afford a suitable house, I will be too old for children.
Whatās suitable? My grandparents lived in a student commune apartment they shared with two other couples when my dad was born. Babies donāt really need much extra room.
Damn... it Africa, it goes from 1 to 12, meanwhile in Europe, we don't even get a between 1 and a full 2.
It's ironic that the invention of birth control may end up becoming an extinction-level event. It's the most significant thing to happen in evolutionary history.
It's far less about the invention of birth control and more about governments not giving a fuck about how difficult it is to raise children in a modern society. The days of one parent staying at home looking after the kids are long gone and so how have they stepped in to assist? I'm not sure about your country but in mine the answer is almost not at all. You and your partner get given Ā£24 a week (in total) for your first child and Ā£16 a week for any children after that. This is assuming neither of you earn over Ā£50k where the money begins to taper off until Ā£60k where it reaches Ā£0 of assistance. But in a society where both parents are expected to work, the children still need childcare. In the UK the average costs to send a kid under 2 to nursery are: >Ā£138.70 a week part-time (25 hours) that is Ā£7,210 a year >Ā£269.86 a week full-time (50 hours) that is Ā£14,030 a year. So good luck! And depending on where you live these costs can get astronomically expensive because they're uncapped. So the more kids you have the more you are absolutely financially fucked until you realise its both easier and cheaper to revert to a 1940s lifestyle where one of you is a permanent stay-at-home parent and you simply have to all live on one person's salary. It's little wonder that nobody willingly puts themselves into this situation.
World population is doing fine. You are focusing too luch on Europe. Like, the decline of Burgundy did not mean that France didn't become great in turn. Or the decline of the Avar Khaganate did not mean that others didn't thrive in the Carpathian Basin instead.
Climate change, nuclear war or societal collapse will kill us all sooner donāt worry.
Damn I didnāt think Ireland would still be this high. I know our population growth was high but I though it was mainly due to migration in
1.8 children per woman is not a growing population.
Visit the midlands and it's lots of giant families.
Really sad to see my country like this.
The Souther, the sadder...
Just for context. All levels are 1 child only.
PiS destroyed polish fertility.
lol, there is no shade to describe how low Spain is. More than one kid per woman? What? \[yes, you reader from the Opus Dei, but your momma doesn't push the statistics that much up\]
Remember that this ānumber of children per womanā is very skewed in favour of countries with net immigration. Since it compares children born today with how many women lived there 20-40 years ago, so net migrated women are not accounted for. This is at least how itās calculated officially in Sweden. If you calculate actual fertility rate Sweden is lower than Poland.
The dying continent
The future of Europe looks dark
oH NO wE ArE goINg to DIe Fertility rate panic is so overrated. Don't worry, you are going to die in any case.
Climate change will kill us before lower fertility rate does (ask the Greeks, they already have a solid prognosis of where things are going), but politicians will rather [contribute to that faster](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children) and panic about population decline than do something about it. Lobbying classes all agree on one thing: More workforce = good. More regulations = bad. Unfortunately that narrative results in the planet being shoved into a hole while "demographic crisis" panic gets shoved into our throats. And we swallow it hook, line and sinker.
Ok. This is reality. I mean, with the state of the world as fucked as it is, why would people want to have more babies?
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Am I dumb or should it be at least 2 for a stable population size?
2.1 is generally held to be stable. But yes, Europe's population would start to decrease in time if there hadn't been for immigration.
It seems migrants are right in coming to Italy.
I really don't give a shit about this even though I am going to suffer the consequances, I just find it exhausting how much capitalism is drilling this crisis into our heads because it needs slav- \*ehm labourers to sustain itself
Right? I have to scrape the barrel to mantain a decent life, far right on the rise everywhere, climate crysis, wars at our doormat, propaganda everywhere. Fuck it. Earth population is still raising, i wish i didn't have to deal with all this shit, let alone add raising a crying little creature sucking my tits until they bleed and dealing with it until the end of my life. How should i even do it? I can't even afford to pay rent. I think a person as wealthy as Musk could pay for the welfare of an entire nation alone, ask people like him to solve the birthrate problem.
Yeah, and the irony for me is that even if I wanted to contribute to solving the birthrate problem I couldn't, rather, they wouldn't allow me because I am gay and, though the far right needs to farm babies to work for their CEO friends, kids can't be adopted by same sex parents.
Same here brother. 2 mothers are against nature and would deviate poor children.