WUNRN
GERMANY TACKLES POPULATION DROP
In
its most recent census, Germany discovered it had lost 1.5 million inhabitants.
By 2060, experts say, the country could shrink by an additional 19 percent.
Germany, an island of prosperity amid Europe’s
seemingly endless economic troubles, is spending heavily to find ways out of
the doom-and-gloom predictions. So far, spending $265 billion a year on family
subsidies has only proved how hard it can be. That is in part because it means
remaking values, customs and attitudes in a country that has a troubled history
with accepting immigrants and where working women with children may still feel
some discrimination.
Large families began to go out of fashion in the
former West Germany in the 1970's, when the country prospered and the fertility
rate dropped to about 1.4 children per woman and then pretty much stayed there,
far below the of 2.1 children that experts consider to be enough to keep a
population stable.
August 13, 2013 - SONNEBERG, Germany — At first
glance, this town in central Germany, with rows of large houses built when it
was a thriving center of toy manufacturing, looks tidy and prosperous. But
Heiko Voigt, the deputy mayor here, can point out dozens of vacant homes that
he doubts will ever be sold.
The reality is that the German population
is shrinking and towns like this one are working hard to hide the emptiness.
Mr. Voigt has already supervised the demolition of 60 houses and 12 apartment
blocs, strategically injecting grassy patches into once-dense complexes.
“We are trying to keep the town looking
good,” he said.
There is perhaps nowhere better than the
German countryside to see the dawning impact of Europe’s plunge in fertility
rates over the decades, a problem that has frightening implications for the
economy and the psyche of the Continent. In some areas, there are now abundant
overgrown yards, boarded-up windows and concerns about sewage systems too empty
to work properly. The work force is rapidly graying, and assembly lines are
being redesigned to minimize bending and lifting.
In its most recent census, Germany
discovered it had lost 1.5 million inhabitants. By 2060, experts say, the
country could shrink by an additional 19 percent, to about 66 million.
Demographers say a similar future awaits
other European countries, and the issue grows more pressing every day as
Europe’s seemingly endless economic troubles accelerate the decline. But bogged
down with failed banks and dwindling budgets, few are in any position to do
anything about it.
Germany, however, an island of prosperity,
is spending heavily to find ways out of the doom-and-gloom predictions, and it
would seem ideally placed to show the Continent the way. So far, though, even
while spending $265 billion a year on family subsidies, Germany has proved only
how hard it can be. That is in part because the solution lies in remaking
values, customs and attitudes in a country that has a troubled history with accepting
immigrants and where working women with children are still tagged with the
label “raven mothers,” implying neglectfulness.
If Germany is to avoid a major labor
shortage, experts say, it will have to find ways to keep older workers in their
jobs, after decades of pushing them toward early retirement, and it will have
to attract immigrants and make them feel welcome enough to make a life here. It
will also need to get more women into the work force while at the same time
encouraging them to have more children, a difficult change for a country that
has long glorified stay-at-home mothers.
There is little doubt about the urgency of
the crisis for Europe. Several recent studies show that historically high
unemployment rates — in excess of 50 percent among youths — in countries like
Greece, Italy and Spain are further discouraging young people from having
children. According to the European Union, the total number of live births in
31 European countries fell by 3.5 percent, to 5.4 million from 5.6 million,
between 2008 and 2011. In 1960 about 7.5 million children were born in 27
European countries.
Even before those trends were detected,
many countries in Europe were expected to shrink by 2060; some, like Latvia and
Bulgaria, even more than Germany. And the proportion of elderly will become
burdensome. There are about four workers for every pensioner in the European
Union. By 2060, the average will drop to two, according to the European Union’s
2012 report on aging.
Some experts worry that Germany has
already waited too long to tackle the issue. But others say that is too
pessimistic. In any case, in Germany the issue is front and center now.
Raising fertility levels in Germany has
not proved easy. Critics say the country has accomplished very little in
throwing money at families in a system of benefits and tax breaks that includes
allowances for children and stay-at-home mothers, and a tax break for married
couples.
Demographers say that a far better
investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by
expanding day care and after-school programs. They say recent data show that
growth in fertility is more likely to come from them.
“If you look closely at the numbers, what
you see is the higher the gender equality, the higher the birthrate,” said
Reiner Klingholz of the Berlin Institute for Population and
Development.
But undoing years of subsidies for
traditional households is difficult. “Touching those is political suicide,”
said Michaela Kreyenfeld of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic
Research in Rostock, Germany.
In the meantime, mothers trying to work
here face obstacles that discourage large families. Though Germany recently
enacted a law guaranteeing day care for all children over 12 months, compared
with 3 years and older before, experts say there is still a shortage of
affordable facilities. Further, many schools let out at noon, and there are few
after-school programs.
Melanie Vogel, 39, of Bonn, found that
trying to blend work and motherhood was so lonely, dispiriting and expensive
that she decided to have one child. None of her friends worked full time, her
mother-in-law made clear she disapproved, and so did clients in the job fair company
she runs with her husband.
“Before my son was born, I was Melanie, a
working businesswoman,” Mrs. Vogel said. “But after my son was born, to a lot
of people, I was just a mother.”
Many working mothers find themselves
quickly pushed into poorly paid “mini” jobs — perhaps 17 hours a week for about
$600 a month. More than four million working women in Germany, about a quarter
of the female work force, hold such jobs.
Another way to adjust to the population
decline is to get older workers to postpone retirement. The German government
is raising the retirement age incrementally to 67 from 65, and companies have
moved fast to adapt. The share of people ages 55 to 64 in the work force had
risen to 61.5 percent in 2012, from 38.9 percent in 2002.
Volkswagen has redesigned its assembly
line to ease the bending and overhead work that put excessive strain on
workers’ bodies. About three years ago, they began using reclining swivel seats
that provide back support even for hard-to-reach spots in the automobiles they
are building, and the installation of heavy parts like wheels and front ends is
now often fully automated.
Other companies are offering flexible
hours to appeal to older workers. Hans Driescher, a physicist trained in the
former East, is 74 and still on the job at the German Aerospace Center almost a
decade after he reached the mandatory retirement age. He started out working 55
hours a month, but has now cut down to 24. He spends the summer in his garden
and works the rest of the year.
With high unemployment rates across most
of Southern and Eastern Europe, Germany is in a good position to increase its
labor pool by plucking the best and the brightest from its neighbors, and it
has begun to do so.
Yet, with hundreds of thousands of skilled
jobs unfilled, some executives believe Germany should change its immigration
laws and accept foreign credentials to compete for workers with other aging
countries.
Germany’s experience with integrating
foreign workers in the past, particularly the country’s large Turkish minority,
has proved difficult, and many government officials and business leaders are
examining Germany’s culture, eager to do what it takes to be hospitable.
But whether they will succeed is unclear.
A recent study found that more than half the Greeks and Spaniards who came to
Germany left within a year. Many arrivals are young and highly qualified and
see a global market for their skills. And many, given the opportunity, will
probably go home, experts say. Immigration in general has become more
temporary, and moving across borders in Europe is especially easy.
“I think the answer is that we need to
look outside Europe,” Dr. Klingholz said.