The European Union has sounded the alarm on their dangerously low birth rate, which will result in a twenty million worker shortage by as early as 2030. Experts admit that there is no way immigration can satisfy the shortfall, according to a New York Times exposé.
According to the NY Times, there were no European countries with fertility rates of less than 1.3 children per woman in 1990. By 2002, there were 15, while six more were below 1.4. “No European country is maintaining its population through births, and only France — with a rate of 1.8 — has even the potential to do so,” wrote NY Times reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal.
“If you have a fertility rate of 1.2 or 1.3 you need to do something about it — it’s really quite a problem,” said Vienna Institute Demographer Tomas Sobotka. “You have labor problems, economic problems and steep rates of population decline.”
A recent RAND Corporation report concluded that the declining birth rate will have dire consequences: “These developments could pose significant barriers to achieving the European Union goals of full employment, economic growth and social cohesion.” Lawmakers in almost all countries have pushed for greater incentives to improve fertility rates.
Meanwhile newer Eastern EU member countries have experienced marked reductions in birth rates, with an alarming 1.2 children average per woman for the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Latvia and Poland — lower even than Western Europe’s record-setting Spain, Greece and Italy, which have all had 1.3 births per woman for at least a decade.
Over the next 40 years the Czech Republic will see a reduction in population from its current 10 million to 8 million. Parliament there voted unanimously this year to double maternity leave payments for women. Every political party in this year’s elections had platforms on “family issues.”
(This article courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
