Why do European women have no children?

[Anonymous]

"Your sweeping generalizations, alone, make your post unworthy of any sort of read or attention paid."

Ditto. Lots of dummies in "highly educated" DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Your sweeping generalizations, alone, make your post unworthy of any sort of read or attention paid."

Ditto. Lots of dummies in "highly educated" DCUM.

There are plenty of folks with agendas to push around here, I'm sure. "Sex means babies" PP may well not post on anything but her agenda.

In addition, there's terms, such as "Armenian genocide" and "Balkan wars," that will draw in outside flame warriors from around the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Your sweeping generalizations, alone, make your post unworthy of any sort of read or attention paid."

Ditto. Lots of dummies in "highly educated" DCUM.

Funny, when 99.99% of humanity that has ever lived has understood that sex and procreation are, in fact, linked.

Not to mention the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths all teach that as truth.

[Anonymous]

I'm German and a lot of my friends 'back home' are not married and they do not have children. Most men are not so eager to get married or do so much later in life. Education and career play an important part and one is generally not really seen as 'strange' if you are 30 and you are not yet married or childless. Housing and cost of living are expensive as well unless you live in a very rural area. Divorce is also very expensive and can take years to complete, especially if there are children in involved.

But, I know that a lot of my friends would prefer to be married and have children. My childless friends love my children and they spoil them when we go home to visit. I like that childcare centers and preschools are low cost and the women/men who work there are highly educated in child development. It is very different here in the U.S.

One poster talked about Iceland. Young people in Iceland do get married pretty young and they also have children pretty young, but there are also lots of subsidies and benefits from the gov't to encourage them to have children (and not in a bad way).

I think the trend of not having children, having fewer children or children very late in life will continue here in the U.S. as well, especially in urban areas.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a source for the European population info above? Not to call you out on it, just b/c it is interesting and I would like to read more.

The NYTimes article cited earlier is a good start, and here is another article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/population-paradox-europes-time-bomb-888030.html

"In Europe the last time that fertility was above replacement level was in the mid-1960s. But now, for the first time on record, birthrates in southern and eastern Europe have dropped below 1.3 – well below the 1.5 which the United Nations has marked as the crisis point. If things continue the population there will be cut in half in just 45 years. In Italy, one recent survey put it at 1.2. Cities such as Milan and Bologna recorded less than 1, the lowest birthrates anywhere."

Due to the likelihood of relaxed immigration policies, I think European populations will probably not fall quite that far. In order to maintain the necessary worker-to-pensioner ratio, tens upon tens of millions of immigrants will be required. Some countries are more open to immigration than others, so some countries will not experience the population decline that their low birth rates would indicate.

Russia is an exceptional situation. Their birth rate is one of the lowest in the world, around 1.2. There are more abortions annually than births. Their death rate is exceptionally high, due to alcoholism, suicide, STDs, depression, and drug use; the death rate is almost twice as high as the birth rate. There are high rates of infertility. They are very resistant to immigration. So their population may truly halve by 2050.

Germany is also exceptional. Almost 30% of women born in 1960 remain childless, and almost 20% of women today said their ideal number of children is none. Their overall population is declining by 100,000 a year.

There is also the share of world population for Europe: in 1950, it was about 12%. By 2050, it will be about 4%.

But the absolute numbers are less important than the composition of the population. The proportion of old to young is reversing. The pool of workers is shrinking. And once demographic trends take hold, they take a very long time to reverse. Women may possibly start having more children, but there will be fewer women to have children in the first place.

I'm sure many environmentalists welcome the fact that world population will peak this century, and then begin to decline. But the consequences of huge populations of elderly people are rather catastrophic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Your sweeping generalizations, alone, make your post unworthy of any sort of read or attention paid."

Ditto. Lots of dummies in "highly educated" DCUM.

Funny, when 99.99% of humanity that has ever lived has understood that sex and procreation are, in fact, linked.

Not to mention the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths all teach that as truth.

I had a tubal. They are no longer linked for me. Ha ha ha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:. But thanks for your concern. My father recently died from Parkinson's but my mother kept him home and hired two assistants to help out. Again, thanks for your concern. (sarcasm, btw - b/c you seem a bit too dense to "get it")

If you would look outside of your little world, you'd understand that not all countries are run like the US - and that not all people are as selfish and greedy as we are.

good luck - You'll need it. Most pathetic people do.

So is smugness a typical family value in your generic non-US country? If it's so great and homey and family-friendly there, why are you here?

Glad your mom was able to hire a couple of assistants. Not all of us are, either here or there.

My generic non-US country is Italy.

We value family there, and those of us here carry on that value.

We're not smug. In fact, I can't tell you how often my friends invite themselves over b/c we are great hosts!

But again, responding to your posts is like writing in chalk on a brick wall during a rainstorm. Understand a culture first before you blast it. Italy is very family-friendly, but b/c of the crushed economy, people are not marrying and are certainly NOT having kids.

chalk on a brick wall - Remember that, dense one.

LOL! Ok there. If you say so. Look, I love Italy. I've traveled there. My family immigrated from Italy. They are wonderful hosts, you are right. But, "family value" certainly has to be parsed out beyond the Pollyanna view of it that you state here.

Women in Italy are notoriously treated as "less than", though that is changing. Bunga, Bunga ring any bells?
See also this article (which is not scholarly by any stretch but is in line with other things I've seen and read in the news and includes the statistic I was looking for): http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/11/15/bunga-bunga-nation-berlusconi-s-italy-hurts-women.html
I particularly like the following excerpt:
"An appalling portrait of Berlusconi’s Italy emerges from the World Economic Forum’s October 2010 Global Gender Gap Report. The WEF looks at such issues as wage parity, labor-force participation, and career-advancement opportunities for women, arguing that closing the gender gap Europe-wide could boost the euro zone’s GDP as much as 13 percent. But as things stand now, Italy would be left leering on the sidelines. In every category but education, Italy lags badly: in labor participation, 87th place worldwide; wage parity, 121st; opportunity for women to take leadership positions, 97th. In the report’s overall ranking, Italy now places 74th in the world for its treatment of women—behind Colombia, Peru, and Vietnam, and seven places lower than it did when Berlusconi returned to office in 2008. “Italy continues to be one of the lowest-ranking countries in the EU and deteriorate[d] further over the last year,” the report says."

A country that devalues women like that can hardly be the shining example of family values. America isn't perfect. Neither is your beloved Italy.

BTW, smug is defined as "Exhibiting or feeling great or offensive satisfaction with oneself or with one's situation." You seem to fit that bill nicely, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Your sweeping generalizations, alone, make your post unworthy of any sort of read or attention paid."

Ditto. Lots of dummies in "highly educated" DCUM.

Funny, when 99.99% of humanity that has ever lived has understood that sex and procreation are, in fact, linked.

Not to mention the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths all teach that as truth.

Slavery and infanticide were a-ok for most of human history, as well. Simple appeal to the past as always right won't necessarily work.

[Anonymous]

Maybe it's not the economy. Maybe they don't want children because single and free if fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Your sweeping generalizations, alone, make your post unworthy of any sort of read or attention paid."

Ditto. Lots of dummies in "highly educated" DCUM.

Funny, when 99.99% of humanity that has ever lived has understood that sex and procreation are, in fact, linked.

Not to mention the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths all teach that as truth.

True. This is why we should never swim for recreation or fitness. For most of human existence, swimming and drowning have been, in fact, linked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Your sweeping generalizations, alone, make your post unworthy of any sort of read or attention paid."

Ditto. Lots of dummies in "highly educated" DCUM.

Funny, when 99.99% of humanity that has ever lived has understood that sex and procreation are, in fact, linked.

Not to mention the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths all teach that as truth.

True. This is why we should never swim for recreation or fitness. For most of human existence, swimming and drowning have been, in fact, linked.

Oh, and BTW, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths have no particular moral standing except to the credulous folks who are members. The Catholic pope was elected by his fellow cardinals because of the bang-up job he'd done protecting the Church hierarchy (and individual priests) from fallout from decades of raping small children in their care. They're overgrown children, but malevolent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In Italy the women don't have children because they know the men will do nothing to help raise the children and will cheat on them.

Do most of them get married? I am thinking having a heir is ultra important for most men although many do not seem to want the responsibility. So what do they do if their wives or many women do not want children? Do the poor, young, less educated women with less opportunities tend to get married because they might be more willing to have children?

The crude marriage rates in Italy (the number of marriages per 1,000 individuals in the population), fell between 1970 and 2007 from 7.35 to 4.21.

is marriage a requirement for having kids???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:materialism and secularism means that you have no contract with the future. Why fix SS or Medicare when you are only concerned about yourself and current times? (obviously some without kids can worry about the planet's future). Having kids makes you think about these issues more.

Bullshit. Every parent I know is obsessed with his or her kids and doesn't spend 3 seconds thinking about the future of the world. "I'm so concerned about the environment" as I toss yet another disposable diaper into the garbage...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:materialism and secularism means that you have no contract with the future. Why fix SS or Medicare when you are only concerned about yourself and current times? (obviously some without kids can worry about the planet's future). Having kids makes you think about these issues more.

Bullshit. Every parent I know is obsessed with his or her kids and doesn't spend 3 seconds thinking about the future of the world. "I'm so concerned about the environment" as I toss yet another disposable diaper into the garbage...

landfills have plenty of room

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:materialism and secularism means that you have no contract with the future. Why fix SS or Medicare when you are only concerned about yourself and current times? (obviously some without kids can worry about the planet's future). Having kids makes you think about these issues more.

Bullshit. Every parent I know is obsessed with his or her kids and doesn't spend 3 seconds thinking about the future of the world. "I'm so concerned about the environment" as I toss yet another disposable diaper into the garbage...

landfills have plenty of room

Spoken like a true parent who doesn't spend three seconds thinking about the future as she tosses yet another disposable diaper into the garbage...