Europe’s Fertility Crisis Explained

this video is brought to you by nebula as you probably already know much of the world is suffering through a demographic crisis fertility rates are falling putting more pressure on public services and straining National budgets Europe is no exception according to the latest eurostat data the eu's fertility rate was about 1.53 in 2021 well below the so-called replacement rate of 2.1 however provisional data for 2022 and 2023 suggest that Europe's fertility rate is now falling at an unprecedented rate and European governments are getting increasingly anxious about their demographic declines so in this video we're going to have a look at Europe's pre-existing demographic crisis why it's gotten way worse in the last year or so and whether there's anything European governments can do to fix it [Music] before we start if you haven't already please consider subscribing and ringing the bell to stay in the loop and be notified when we release new videos so to understand this video you're going to need a bit of context to maintain a stable population a country needs a fertility rate that is the number of births per female of 2.1 low fertility rates that is a fertility rate significantly below the replacement rate of 2.1 are economically and politically stressful low fertility rates mean a smaller and importantly an older population this means there will be less people of working age relative to pensioners which means a smaller economically productive population sustaining a relatively larger non-productive population this means two things one a smaller economy overall because you've got fewer working age people and two a higher tax burden on those young people that are working this is because assuming you want to maintain your current quality of Public Services you need to make sure you're getting the same amount of tax per capita but if you've got fewer working age people and more idle pensioners they you need to tax those working age people more heavily to keep standards up this is both bad economically a higher tax burden will at least in theory discourage working and bad socially because it creates intergenerational unfairness most of the developed world and actually quite a lot of the developing world is struggling with low fertility rates the U.S and Canada for example have both seen their fertility rates fall from about four in 1960 to about 1.8 and 1.5 respectively today and lots of countries in Southeast Asia including perhaps most notably China have fertility rates even lower the latest data from China for example implies a fertility rate of 1.09 which is pretty insane especially when you consider that China had a fertility rate of about six in the 1960s anyway like everyone else Europe is also struggling with a below replacement fertility rate according to the latest eurostat data which runs until 2021 the European Union's average fertility rate was 1.53 which is slightly higher than what it was in 2020 during the pandemic when it fell to 1.5 the countries with the lowest fertility rates are Spain Italy and Poland while the highest fertility rates are in Sweden France Island and parts of Central and Eastern Europe now this might not sound too bad after all it's somewhere between Canada and the US and well above places like China and Japan however the continent-wide data masks the Stark decline in certain European countries which have been offset by increases in fertility in Central and Eastern Europe there's an interesting divide in Europe here as the graph shows fertility rates are falling across northern and western Europe but actually rising in Central in Eastern Europe as well as Portugal but perhaps more worryingly provisional data for 2022 and 2023 suggest that the increase in 2021 was mainly because fertility he was artificially suppressed during the pandemic when Europeans couldn't really have kids and fertility rates have dropped precipitously since not all countries have released their data yet which is why we don't have eurostat data but those that have saw steep declines France for example has seen its fertility rate Fall by over 10 percent with fewer babies so far in 2023 than ever before which would imply a fertility rate of about 1.68 similarly Germany's fertility rate fell from 1.58 in 2021 to 1.46 in 2022 and is expected to fall even further to 1.4 in 2023 driven by steep declines in German cities Berlin and Munich for example both have fertility rates of about 1.2 at the moment the Netherlands fertility rate fell from 1.62 in 2021 to about 1.46 in 2023 in fact at least nine European countries including Iceland the Czech Republic Albania or all the nordics and all the baltics are expected to see their fertility rates Fall by at least 20 percent from 2021 to 2023 and many of the European countries with stable fertility rates are only avoiding decline because they're so low in the first place Spain and Italy for example have relatively stable fertility rates but they're both already well below the European average at about 1.2 and 1.25 respectively the problem has become so acute that many European governments have started implementing policies actively designed to increase their fertility rate known as pronatalist policies Hungary in Poland first implemented pronatalist policies in the 2000s after their fertility rates collapsed in the 90s Hungary now allows for a total of up to three years of paternal leave with some wage replacement and Poland's family 500 plus program provides a monthly cash benefit to All Families for each child until the age of 18. Sweden implemented tacitly pronatalist policies in the early 2010s including an impressive 18 months of paid leave for each parent and George Maloney has been actively trying to boost birth rates in Italy railing against what she's described as the demographic winter worryingly for all these politicians history suggests that it's very hard to reverse demographic decline despite their generous pro-family policies fertility rates are still below replacement rates in all the countries we just mentioned and Decades of pronatalist policy making have done little to stem the demographic decline in South Korea Singapore and Japan the most obvious solution is immigration especially of young people but this has proved increasingly controversial in Europe and even then it's not clear that this is a sustainable solution both because fertility rates in the rest of the world are also falling fast and because after at most a couple of generations immigrants usually end up converging to their new country's fertility rate if governments are serious about reversing Europe's demographic decline however then they should start by looking at housing there's good evidence that expensive housing isn't helping in general expensive housing means more young adults still live at home and there is unsurprisingly a negative correlation between the age you move out and the number of kids you end up having ultimately there's no quick fix for Europe's demographic decline but as the issue becomes ever more pressing European governments would be well advised to look at housing now it seems that if you've watched a full video on Europe's fertility crisis then you're interested in European news Well we discuss all sorts of European news including recent debates about French secularism in the daily discussion there myself and Rory sat down to discuss the history and recent controversies surrounding the French approach to secularism to help us better understand what's really going on in fact we release these daily discussions well day covering a huge variety of topics in a more analytical and detailed way than is possible in these main videos the entire series is available exclusively on our streaming service nebula if you've been thinking about signing up that I have some good news for a limited time we're offering lifetime memberships yep if you sign up for a lifetime membership you get access for as long as both you and nebula exist plus you're also funding new original content from your favorite creators in fact if you sign up using our link then a third of that money goes straight to us and the rest goes into the pool to develop new nebula Originals with bigger budgets and better production now it's clearly a lot of money and honestly the best value plan is still the annual one but if you really want to support independent creators and help us make even bigger projects then this is the best option again do make sure you use our link so that they know that you're supporting tldr and also this offer only lasts until the end of the month with no guarantee it'll ever be offered again so if you're interested this is your opportunity anyway thanks for your support and for signing up to nebula

Channel: TLDR News EU

Views: 446,151

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Id: gomrMfWrPz8

Length: 9min 25sec (565 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 05 2023