German Population Plunge "Irreversible"
USA May Have 300 Million People, But No Overpopulation Worries
European Nations Have UNDERPopulation Problems
US Commission Reports China Still "Strictly Controls Reproductive Lives" of Women
GERMAN POPULATION PLUNGE “IRREVERSIBLE” Federal Stats Office Admits. One third of all European children will be born to Muslim families by 2025; the birthrate has dropped so low that immigration numbers cannot compensate. Germany has the lowest birthrate in Europe, with an average of 1.36 children per woman. Despite government incentives to encourage larger families, the population is dropping rapidly and that trend will continue, with an expected loss of up to 12 million by 2050. That would mean about a 15 percent drop from the country’s current population of 82.4 million [German news Deutsche Welle, 9Nov]. The low birthrate will cause the German population to age dramatically over the next 40 years–last year there were 144,000 more deaths than births, and that number could increase to 600,000 by 2050, the FSO forecast stated. With a 22 percent reduction in the workforce and increasing costs for senior assistance and medical care, the drop in population is expected to have a radical impact on the nation’s economy, along with the welfare budget. “I wouldn’t like to use the word ‘bankrupt’ because it’s a major challenge for the social insurance systems, that’s for certain…In every case, you need someone who has to work and give you some earnings” Radermacher said in an interview with DW-Radio. “The projections tell us the development of demographic trends will be even more dramatic in the eastern part of Germany,” Radermacher said . “This is because of the fertility rates in the eastern part of Germany, because of internal migration with the borders of Germany and many other demographic factors.” While immigrants are increasingly relied upon to compensate for low birth rates in European countries, Radermacher said even factoring in a projected annual influx of 100,000-200,000 migrants won’t prevent the population plunge. “Even those people who are immigrants adopt after a couple years the lifestyle and the number of children per family. So the assumption that immigrants will stick to their habits is simply not true.” Germany has one of the largest populations of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe, with a Muslim community of over 3 million. That trend is expected to continue, leading some demographic trend-watchers to warn that the country is well on the way to becoming a Muslim state by 2050 [Deutsche Welle].
The Brussels Journal reported last month that one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families by 2025. There are an estimated 50 million Muslims living in Europe today–that number is expected to double over the next twenty years. The population losses faced by Germany reflect a trend occurring across Europe–The European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat has predicted an overall drop in Europe’s population of 7 million people by 2050. Related: Germany Acknowledges Impending Pension System Collapse from Low Population http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/jul/04072205.html
German Birthrate Hits Bottom: Lowest in Europe
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06031711.html
[Agence France-Presse; 9Nov06, LifeSiteNews.com, Schultz, Berlin, 9Nov06
U.S. WILL SOON HAVE 300 MILLION PEOPLE, BUT NO OVERPOPULATION WORRIES. The United States will soon have 300 million people, but a leading population research organization says that's a reason to celebrate. The group indicates that the fears from population control advocates and abortion supporters about what the landmark figure means are unfounded.
The Population Research Institute says worries of overpopulation will abound when the media reports on the 300 millionth person, but says there are no concerns because the nation's population growth averages about 0.9% annually. In fact, PRI president Steven Mosher, a leading expert on population growth, says the expansion of the number of people in the United States is beneficial.
"With the population of the United States expected to continue aging for decades, threatening the impending bankruptcies of Social Security and Medicare among other crises, America needs more people," Mosher told LifeNews.com in a statement. Joseph A. D'Agostino, PRI's vice president for communications, adds that the concerns some may have by the large wave of immigration into the United States in recent decades should be separated from issues of population growth.
"America's aging problem and low unemployment rate means she needs more workers for the future," he said. [LifeNews.com, 14Sept06]
EUROPEAN COUNTRIES HAVE UNDERPOPULATION PROBLEMS BECAUSE OF ABORTION. Thanks to the legalization of abortion, most nations in Europe are experiencing severe underpopulation problems and have such low birth rates that they will have a difficult in replacing their current populations.
Had abortion not been legal, the nations likely wouldn't have had the same issues.
A new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that all European nations recorded birth rates of more than 1.3 children per woman in 1990. But, by 2002, 15 counties had rates below 1.3 children per woman, and six countries had rates between 1.3 and 1.4 children per woman. A rate of 2.1 is needed to maintain a population.
Ireland, one of the few European nations where abortion is illegal, has the highest fertility rate of any European nation. Portugal, which also prohibits abortion, is in the top half and Malta, another pro-life nation, is in the middle of the list of countries.
"If you have a fertility rate of 1.2 or 1.3 you n
eed to do something about it — it's really quite a problem,” Tomas Sobotka of the Vienna Institute of Demography said. “You have labor problems, economic problems and steep rates of population decline.” The nations with the worst problems, according to the report, are those eastern European countries where abortion has been used as a method of birth control. [7Sept06, LifeNews.com, Belgium]
The European Union has sounded the alarm on their dangerously low birth rate, which will result in a 20-million worker shortage by as early as 2030. Experts admit that there is no way immigration can satisfy the shortfall [New York Times exposé]. “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” [Times].
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. 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.” Germany is likely to lose a fifth of its 82.5 million people in the next 40 years.
Sociologist Ben Wattenberg, in his book, "Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future", warned, “Never in the last 650 years, since the time of the Black Plague, have birth and fertility rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long, in so many places.” The changing role of women away from childbirth toward careers is cited by Rosenthal as a significant factor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/04/world/europe/04prague.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Related:
EU Commissioner calls on Europeans to have More Children
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/aug/05081006.html
Newsweek Exposes Real Population Crisis: Mass World Depopulation
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/sep/04092201.html
Germany Acknowledges Impending Pension System Collapse from Low Population
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/jul/04072205.html
[Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times; 6Sept06, LifeSiteNews.com, Prague]
US COMMISSION REPORTS CHINA STILL “STRICTLY CONTROLS REPRODUCTIVE LIVES” OF WOMEN through pervasive propaganda, mandatory contraception, mandatory birth permits, & coercive fines. In its 2006 annual report, the US Congressional Executive Commission on China says Chinese population planning laws “contravene international human rights standards” and that the government still “strictly controls the reproductive lives” of Chinese women.
The 2006 report speaks of “pervasive propaganda, mandatory monitoring of women’s reproductive cycles, mandatory contraception, mandatory birth permits, coercive fines for failure to comply, and, in some cases, forced sterilization and abortion” as the foundation of the government’s population control program
The report states flatly that the Chinese population planning laws flout international human rights laws “by limiting the number of children that women may bear, by coercing compliance with population targets through heavy fines, and by discriminating against ‘out-of-plan’ children.”
The Commission on China has monitored human rights issues and the development of the rule of law in China in the hard-line communist state since October 2000. Its annual report is submitted to the President and Congress and forms the basis of much of US foreign policy towards China.
In addition to population control measures, the Commission monitors the situation for Chinese religious believers worshipping in state-controlled venues. This year’s report says the Chinese government, in the name of promoting “social stability,” is increasing pressure on religious believers who violated strict government limitations on religious practice.
The report notes that the “limited improvements” in human rights practices in 2004 were overshadowed in 2005-’06 by “backward-stepping government decisions.” The report decries the government suppression of communications media especially its “regulatory control over the Internet and print publishing to censor political and religious expression, to imprison journalists and writers, and to prevent Chinese citizens from having access to independent news sources.”
The suppression of religious practice both within and outside and within officially sanctioned venues is also a matter of concern to the Commission. Five religions – Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism – are recognized by the government and those citizens who decline to register as official adherents to the state controlled groups risk “harassment, detention, imprisonment, and other abuses.”
Even those who register with the official religious communities risk the same abuse, the report says, “if they engage in religious activities that authorities deem a threat to Party authority or legitimacy.”
The population control measures which favour the births of boys over girls, have created a potentially disastrous imbalance in the sexes among younger Chinese born since the imposition of the “family planning” laws. Chinese women in urban areas are normally allowed to have only one child, but the law allows rural women to have a second child if the first is a girl.
The report says, “this imbalance exace
rbates trafficking of women and girls for sale as brides. Between 10,000 and 20,000 men, women, and children are victims of trafficking within China each year, and NGOs estimate that 90 percent of those victims are women and children trafficked for sexual exploitation.”
The report also has strong criticisms for the treatment of the lawyer and activist Chen Guangcheng, who was arrested and sentenced on August 24, 2006, to four years and three months’ imprisonment, after he drew international attention to population planning abuses by government officials.
Such abuses of power, the report says, “will only undermine the legitimacy of government actions and of China’s developing legal system.” This August, the US government called on the Chinese to release Chen who was arrested on trumped up charges which were laid, according to international human rights organizations, in order to silence his legal activism against the population control program.
The Commission says that the US government is “deeply concerned” at the decline of human rights in China as the government attempts to crack down on the growing Chinese social unrest.
Read the report of the Congressional Executive Commission on China (Adobe reader required):
http://www.cecc.gov/pages/annualRpt/annualRpt06/CECCannRpt2006.pdf
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
US Urges China to Release Blind Anti-Forced-Abortion Activist Chen Guangcheng
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/aug/06081404.html
[26Sept06 LifeSiteNews.com, White, DC]