Something that is rarely mentioned in these articles it's Germanys regressive policy on dual citizenship (i.e. only permitted in rare circumstances) this makes a country unattractive for long term immigration. While this may not be such an issue for intra EU migration, it certainly seems to cause issues with Turkish immigrants. It's a much bigger jump to naturalize if that means giving up your previous citizenship
Germany Fights Population Drop
51–60 of 77 posts
Re: Germany Fights Population Drop
#52This is an editorial comment disguised as objective reporting: "But bogged down with failed banks and dwindling budgets, few are in any position to do anything about it." The reasoning is something like "We can not save ourselves from collapse because we are collapsing." This is not a serious line of reasoning. Whenever people are faced with 2 problems, they need to make a decision about which problem is more urgent.…
We are not poorer now, but as you pointed out, children have gone from being profitable to being a burden, so no matter how much money we may have, there is less incentive to have children. I'm also thinking that back in the day, your children were your retirement plan, so better have enough of them to make sure you will be taken care of. But now that the state is our retirement plan, even less reason to have kids.
Do you honestly feel that, in the entire nation of Germany, there are no families that are constrained primarily by money, when considering how many children to have? Given the way population tends to accumulate over time, you only need to convince 15% of those women who have already given birth to have 1 extra child, to raise Germany's birth rate back up to the replacement level. The question then is, are there those families who might like to have another child, if the cost was less of a burden? To borrow a phrase from economics, such policies seek to influence those families "at the margin", that is, those families that are considering having another child, and for whom some extra subsidy might be exactly what is needed to influence their decision in a positive direction. As in sales, there is no need to go after those who would never buy your product. There is no need to go after those women who are happy to be childless. The focus of pro-natalist policies is always to influence those who are open to the idea and who can be persuaded with some form of help.
Re: Germany Fights Population Drop
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's considered healthy these days for children to spend time away from their family in the care of others. It helps to develop a sense of individuality and independence from the parents at a younger age. Plus, from what I've heard, sometimes the parents and the children just need a break from each other. Yes, this can be done by taking the kid to a park or other social activities, but two working parents is…
> Daycare isn't unbeneficial to a child. That's a very simplified observation of a complex reality. Not all daycares are created equal: The National Institute of Child Health Development[1] found that most daycare operations are "fair" or "poor". Only 10% are "high-quality". Obviously the details are what matter in each case: a caring parent at home is far better than a crowded day-care. Conversely, a great daycare c…
It's a fair point, I was trying to come up with a concise way to refute "but it would also be hugely beneficial for the children's development!" because I'm not sure that's entirely true. There's nothing I've seen saying that, everything else staying the same, a parent at home is massively more beneficial than a child in daycare. The most important thing is parental involvement, and that can be done with or without daycare. A stay-at-home parent who doesn't engage their child is just as bad as two working parents who do the same.
Re: Germany Fights Population Drop
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 poss…
Two important factors here are social responses and a financial issues. Anecdotal: my wife is often the recipient of derision when she mentions she stays at home with the kids, as though she should be out working. (Personally I think her job is far harder than mine!)
Similarly, we often meet people who claim to want to stay at home, but can't afford to. Meanwhile they have nice cars, iPhones, etc. In reality they're working to maintain a standard of living, not because they need to. Choices, choices.
Re: Germany Fights Population Drop
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are not poorer now, but as you pointed out, children have gone from being profitable to being a burden, so no matter how much money we may have, there is less incentive to have children. I'm also thinking that back in the day, your children were your retirement plan, so better have enough of them to make sure you will be taken care of. But now that the state is our retirement plan, even less reason to have kids.
Do you honestly feel that, in the entire nation of Germany, there are no families that are constrained primarily by money, when considering how many children to have? Given the way population tends to accumulate over time, you only need to convince 15% of those women who have already given birth to have 1 extra child, to raise Germany's birth rate back up to the replacement level. The question then is, are there thos…
I'm not disagreeing with you, I don't think. I'm just pointing out that I don't think people having less kids means that they are poorer. As you pointed out, kids have gone from being profitable to being a cost, so it doesn't really matter how rich or poor people are, they will have less kids. Unless, I guess, the state heavily subsidizes, and it seems that this article is saying that the efforts thus far to increase fertility via subsidization have proved too little.
But actually, I think the general theory is that people have less kids precisely because they are richer as opposed to being poorer, since they don't need kids in order to labor on the farm and don't need kids to pay for the parents retirement.
Re: Germany Fights Population Drop
#56German 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…
Coming from the US, the idea that kindergarten is not required seems odd to me. I was going to say that kindergarten is required here in the US, but I thought I should double check that just to be sure. I was pretty surprised by the results. Only 16 of the 50 states require kindergarten as part of the mandatory (compulsory) education [1]. The state where I went to school doesn't require kindergarten, but my very very…
Kindergarten covers children aged 3 to 6 in Germany, while school starts at 6 (with some variance allowed based on individual development). In any case, when entering school, kindergarten is a thing of the past.
School teachers prefer kids to go to kindergarten for the social and verbal skills they acquire there, but it's not mandatory.
Re: Germany Fights Population Drop
#57"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.
A bit of both. There is a certain shortage, but I hear that tune for 15 years or so now (that is, across two tech booms and one bust).
The difference is in the objective: Our tech lobbyists (luckily quite incompetent) would like to reduce the minimum mandatory wage for skilled immigrant workers which exists to avoid pressure on locals.
As if even lower wages make working in Germany more attractive to skilled labor that can choose between countries - including the US (where at least the gross pay is noticeably higher for skilled jobs).
Re: Germany Fights Population Drop
#58Hopefully the resulting labour crunch will encourage more automation.
Worked in the Middle Ages after the Black Death.
Aside: I love the show Connections with James Burke and highly recommend it. Many of the threads weaved in the show come start near this time period because the labour crunch required machines otherwise there just wouldn't have been enough labour to run the society left.
Re: Germany Fights Population Drop
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are not poorer now, but as you pointed out, children have gone from being profitable to being a burden, so no matter how much money we may have, there is less incentive to have children. I'm also thinking that back in the day, your children were your retirement plan, so better have enough of them to make sure you will be taken care of. But now that the state is our retirement plan, even less reason to have kids.
Do you honestly feel that, in the entire nation of Germany, there are no families that are constrained primarily by money, when considering how many children to have? Given the way population tends to accumulate over time, you only need to convince 15% of those women who have already given birth to have 1 extra child, to raise Germany's birth rate back up to the replacement level. The question then is, are there thos…
Children have always been expensive, haven't they? But I think that's more of a cultural issue - people prefer consumption to investing in raising kids.
And working children don't usually bring in lots of money, but back in the day they would care for their elderly parents, which was a good reason to have kids.
I think it's not mainly about money (why do Germany's academics have the fewest children?), but about creating a children-friendly climate and a culture where raising children is considered a good thing and not just a burden that keeps you from consuming. Children and modern consumer culture - bad fit.
Re: Germany Fights Population Drop
#60Society needs fresh blood to work, pay taxes, pay our retirement pensions, but the bill is still stuck upon the individuals that choose to have children. Only crazy people have children nowadays.
This is all wrong.
Or else, we're failing as a species.
An individual, or any group of individuals, should be able to sustain themselves by their own work, as long as there are enough resources in the environment (or ecosystem).
Given that children are not self sustaining, individuals, or rather couples, but even more so, groups of individuals (villages, tribes, countries), should be able to get even more resources than their own need by their own work, so as to feed their children, their women and their olds. Or better, capitalize resources so they can feed themselves when they're old.
A society that would really need fresh blood, that had too many taxes or retirement pensions to pay, and where women cannot bear children because they have to work to sustain themselves, since men aren't retributed enough to feed their families all by themselves, those societies are beyond failure. They have effectively failed. It's done.
But I'm not sure that's the case in Europe or in the USA. I still think that there are enough resources, and even more than ever, given techological and scientific progress; eg. 200 years ago, 98% of the population had to work to feed the remaining 2%; nowadays 1% of the population has to work to feed the remaining 99%; therefore people should be able to work productively 4 days a year (not at those useless jobs), and earn enough resources to feed himself. Working 12 more days a year, he should earn enough resource to feed his wife and two children. Similarly, to shelter and clothe oneself shouldn't require much more work. All the rest goes to pay taxes of all kinds, that we shouldn't have to bear with.