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Germany Fights Population Drop

nytimes.com

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Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#11

Post by cylinder »

jobu wrote: post #6

"Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school programs." In college I had a professor from East Germany that talked about this. The communists did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they got right was an impressive support system for working parents. The preschools and child care programs were excellent, and women were…

I think this is the biggest gap in western governments currently, and huge productivity boosts could be had if they solve this problem. Especially in the US.

It's incomprehensible that a parent should have to pay thousands per month just to be able to have a child and work at the same time.

Paid maternal leave is not the big issue! After six months of leave, the problem remains that a child needs to be looked after and cared for while the mother returns to work.

Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#12

Post by thejdude »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #4

Right now Germany hugely profits from immigration out of other European and overseas countries, bringing in more than 400.000 (net) immigrants in 2013 alone. The figure for 2014 will likely be even higher. If they can keep up this trend it will be able to compensate (to a large degree) the decline of the population caused by low birth rates. In fact, the 2008 demography report of the government (which brought the dem…

Usually, immigration is good for the economy and for everyone who lives there. Germany is pretty cheap country to live in (food is probably the best and cheapest in Europe to come by, but salaries also are rather low, esp. compared to the US), IMHO probably due to the many immigrants.

We also need more qualified workers, as everyday I see German dumbos who are seriously unqualified for their job ;-)

But yes, if the day should come that German dumbos should be replaced with skilled people from Spain, Turkey, or Greece, many people might end up very pissed.

Edit: if you vote me down, maybe you'd like to elaborate on where our opinions or observations differ?

Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#13

Post by pedrosorio »

funthree wrote: post #5

Lets be honest.. the multi-cultural society brought on by leftists and feminists and foreigners leads people to give up on the future of their culture. These people don't want families with non-Germans and they don't want Germany to be non-German, but they are occupied by foreign cultures and they can't do anything to change it. edit: Every German will upvote this comment

"These people don't want families with non-Germans and they don't want Germany to be non-German"

So they stop having children with other Germans. Makes sense.

Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#14

Post by VLM »

"Yet, with hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs unfilled, some executives believe"

I wonder if this is actually true or if its like the typical American sob story of we can't get PHD's to work for minimum wage so we need to outsource.

Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#15

Post by thejdude »

jobu wrote: post #6

"Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school programs." In college I had a professor from East Germany that talked about this. The communists did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they got right was an impressive support system for working parents. The preschools and child care programs were excellent, and women were…

AFAI have heard, East Germany still has much better child support infrastructure than West Germany. They also have a different culture. Women in or from the East tend to marry younger and get children earlier in their lives than Western women. I think that's a good thing, and also implies fewer medical complications related to birth, healthier kids, etc.

Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#16

Post by mgbmtl »

thejdude wrote: post #7

German here. The initiative to provide a kindergarden for every child is quite a failure. It was decreed by the federal govt that every city (i.e. local govt) has to provide enough resources, but there simply aren't enough kindergarden workers for that (and not enough money to get more people to do that badly paid job). As I see it, it was just an easy way to gain votes. It's easy to pass laws that your own governmen…

Imo, it's worth it though. Having universal kindergarden caused a mini baby-boom in Quebec when it was initially put in place. Having good daycare is hard and extremely stressful to parents. My productivity at work soared when I finally had proper daycare for my kid.

However, it's systematically under attack from the government since. It's politically easier to cut kindergarden budgets rather than health services or corporate welfare. Another important need is for better parental leave so that both parents can raise their children and have a full time job.

Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#17

Post by [deleted] »

funthree wrote: post #5

Lets be honest.. the multi-cultural society brought on by leftists and feminists and foreigners leads people to give up on the future of their culture. These people don't want families with non-Germans and they don't want Germany to be non-German, but they are occupied by foreign cultures and they can't do anything to change it. edit: Every German will upvote this comment

[deleted]

Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#18

Post by sliverstorm »

cylinder wrote: post #11
jobu wrote: post #6

"Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school programs." In college I had a professor from East Germany that talked about this. The communists did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they got right was an impressive support system for working parents. The preschools and child care programs were excellent, and women were…

I think this is the biggest gap in western governments currently, and huge productivity boosts could be had if they solve this problem. Especially in the US. It's incomprehensible that a parent should have to pay thousands per month just to be able to have a child and work at the same time. Paid maternal leave is not the big issue! After six months of leave, the problem remains that a child needs to be looked after a…

It's incomprehensible that a parent should have to pay thousands per month just to be able to have a child and work at the same time.

Why is it incomprehensible? Watching a kid takes time, time costs money. Someone has to pay for it. Maybe you don't think it's right that the parent should be the one to pay for supervision of their kid, but I'm still lost as to how you arrived at "incomprehensible".

Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#19

Post by tomp »

cylinder wrote: post #11
jobu wrote: post #6

"Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school programs." In college I had a professor from East Germany that talked about this. The communists did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they got right was an impressive support system for working parents. The preschools and child care programs were excellent, and women were…

I think this is the biggest gap in western governments currently, and huge productivity boosts could be had if they solve this problem. Especially in the US. It's incomprehensible that a parent should have to pay thousands per month just to be able to have a child and work at the same time. Paid maternal leave is not the big issue! After six months of leave, the problem remains that a child needs to be looked after a…

> while the mother returns to work

But why?

I'm young and child-less, so I'm not speaking out of experience, but I really see no reasons why we should be encouraging people to be able to work while having kids. Instead, I think we should enable them to not work and have kids. 50 years ago, it was more than possible to sustain a family with only a single working parent. Nowadays, this doesn't seem even remotely possible (hell, many families barely survive with 2 working parents!). Furthermore, it's not like we're facing a shortage of workforce problems - we're facing unemployment problems. If we could enable e.g. 30% of the workforce (hopefully dads as well - I would love to stay at home instead of working) to stay at home with kids instead, not only would that solve the unemployment issues, but it would also be hugely beneficial for the children's development!

Edited to add: I actually come from a country where most adults worked even 50 years ago. However, when I was young, my grandmother was already retired, so she was able to take care of me and my brother until we started school. Still, I wish my parents had been able to spend more time with me when I was little, and I wish I'll have that opportunity with my kids.

Re: Germany Fights Population Drop

#20

Post by funthree »

pedrosorio wrote: post #13
funthree wrote: post #5

Lets be honest.. the multi-cultural society brought on by leftists and feminists and foreigners leads people to give up on the future of their culture. These people don't want families with non-Germans and they don't want Germany to be non-German, but they are occupied by foreign cultures and they can't do anything to change it. edit: Every German will upvote this comment

"These people don't want families with non-Germans and they don't want Germany to be non-German" So they stop having children with other Germans. Makes sense.

Giving up never makes sense. I still speak the truth.
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