The Birth Rate Dilemma of Germany

It's a short discussion they had at N-TV news this morning....chatting over the declining population of Germany.

Excellent project by Manuel Slupina (the Berlin Institute for Population and Development).  Worth a five-minute read. 

While the population decline isn't that dramatic for the next decade....starting around 2035....the decline will be obvious.  It will go from 83-million (presently) to 66-million by 2100.

Why?  You could spend an hour discussing this, but it leads to three characteristics:

1.  For a hundred years, birth-control has been readily practiced in Germany, and since the end of WW I....German women have figured into the business, commerce and industry picture.  The days of families having 3 or more kids?  Mostly over.

2.  The cost of living is such....that generally....families will limit themselves to one or two kids.

3.  Even when you have new immigrants arrive....which you'd think they'd keep the old-country tradition going with more kids....NO, they adapt and within a generation usually, they go to the German expectations.

So this leads the study to ask this round of questions.  Will the labor market change?  Will cities shrink?  Will pensions be a problem?  Will health insurance work the same way?

At the heart of this discussion....the pension program will begin to see issue in twenty to thirty years. 

I might argue here that rural areas will be the one worst hit, and cities will continue to be the focus of next generation or two.

You might be able by 2050 to drive out to rural communities today which have 300 residents, and find in 30 years....less than fifty people exist in this village, with forty-odd houses sitting vacant.

Yes, change is coming....it's just that most of us won't be around in 2050 or 2100 to see it in Germany.

The odds of an open-immigration door continuing to exist?  It wouldn't surprise me if the door in ten years were to swing wider, and various Asian groups start to migrate into Germany.  Same for some Latin American countries.