EUROPE'S POPULATION DECLINE: PROBLEM OR OPPORTUNITY?

The population of Europe is falling. The region is undergoing a grandscale social experiment, being the first in history to voluntarily undergo such a large decline. Certain experts respond with "What a calamity", others with "What a breakthrough." Wherein lies reason and truth?

Before going into Europe's details, let's note that its situation is quite the opposite of the United States with its annual population growth of 1.1%. This is by far the highest of the developed countries (and even higher than China's), producing an additional three million people per year to go with the 293 million or so already in the United States. If that rate of increase were maintained--and there are no measures thus far to reduce it--today's baby would, by the time he or she reaches old age, be sharing the country with almost 600 million fellow Americans. Is that what he or she would really want?

How is Europe faring with ever-fewer people? The year 2000 saw a turning point for the region when its population started on an emphatic decline. Nor is there prospect of a change in direction any time soon. Fewer children today means fewer potential parents in the next generation, hence fewer children again. Not only are there smaller families but late motherhood is becoming so desirable that even if women started having more children again and at younger ages, there would still be too few potential mothers to make an immediate difference. So the region's population will keep on falling for decades.

In fact Europe could soon encounter what demographers call "negative momentum" when a shrinking population goes into an ever-steeper spiral of decline. How much of a decline is underway already? Europe's 47 countries possessed 726 million people in 2003, a total projected to slump to 696 million by 2025, a drop as large as Canada's population. Twelve of the major 27 countries feature falling numbers. If present trends persist, the decline will become still bigger and arrive faster in more distant decades as the region increasingly falls prey to negative momentum. By 2050 Europe's population could shrink to 565 million people.

Many European women are putting off their first child in order to concentrate on their education or career. For this reason among others, an average woman bears just 1.5 babies, whereas at least two births are required to maintain "replacement fertility". Consider, then, the prospect for Italy, with 57.2 million people today and an average family size of only 1.2 children, the latter being the lowest for any large country. Italy also features the second oldest population in the world after Japan, with a median age of just over 41 years, a phenomenon known as "greying" of the population. As a result, Italy is projected to have no more than 45 million people in 2050, with a disproportionate share of them being 65 years and over. The European country with the largest percentage decline anticipated is Russia, which may plunge by 2050 from 144 million people today to around 100 million.

Now consider what happens to economies with populations that are both shrinking and greying. Already Europe features 35 people of pensionable age for every 100 people of working age; by 2050 and supposing present demographic trends persist, the total of pensioners will climb to 75 for every 100 workers. Italy and Spain could even see their ratios soar to reach 1:1. Italy, France and Germany pay their pensions out of their current tax revenues, which means that taxes will expand massively if they are to keep funding pensions at the generous levels established thus far. German workers already assign 30% of their income, and Italians 33%, to state pensions. Result, angry outbursts of workers in Germany, Italy, France and Austria.

Moreover, due to negative momentum, once the source factors of the future are set in place, it is difficult to change the outcome. Suppose Europe's fertility rate were to rise to 2.0 children, unlikely as that is; and suppose there were to be an increase in immigration rate to 1.2 million people per year, still more unlikely as that is. The old-age dependency ratio, i.e. those aged 65-plus in relation to those aged 15-64, would nevertheless soar by three quarters in the near future.

These figures all reflect "natural increase" (or lack of it) in Europe, meaning they do not account for immigration. This is a specially potent factor for Germany, which has been taking on board a whopping 250,000 foreigners per year (though way less than the United States' three million), mainly from Turkey which does not yet count as "European". Even so, Germany's 2100 population would total no more than 50 million or so. One of the few countries expecting a future rise in numbers is the United Kingdom, which is projected to increase from today's 60 million to 63 million in 2025, two thirds of this being due to immigration of 135,000 people per year.

With respect to immigration, note that many countries bordering Europe, notably in western Asia and North Africa, feature populations that are poor, youthful and fast growing. They total around 300 million today, projected to swell by a whopping half by 2025. Already there is a tide of immigrants, both legal and illegal, heading into Europe across the Mediterranean Sea. Could this phenomenon, seen in many eyes as a problem, turn out to be a semi-solution to Europe's population outlook (if decline is a problem)? Could they make up for the ostensible shortage of workers and pension providers? Unlikely: for one thing, foreign labor is unwelcome in those countries with hefty unemployment; today some 15-20 million are jobless in Europe as a whole. Still more to the point, immigration would have to be 5-10 times greater than at present to offset the economic effects of ageing populations. In any case, today's inflow is causing social, cultural and hence political strains, inducing anti-immigration politicians in France, Italy and Netherlands to foment hostility toward "the outsiders."

But a key factor is this: the longer governments delay in tackling the overall problem, the bigger the problem they will eventually have to confront. For example, as pension payments become ever more burdensome, ageing voters will become all the more reluctant to reduce their own pensions.

The outlook will also affect the hopes of many Europeans to create a superpower to rival the United States. By 2050 the region's collective economies could be growing at little over 1% per year, compared with more than 2% in the United States (and at least 3% in China). In fact, could all this mean that Europe may eventually face what has been termed "a slow but inexorable exit from history"?

Fortunately there is a highly positive point to all this. A future with fewer people in Europe--these being some of the most affluent and hence the most consumerist people in the world--will mean less pressure on natural resources of all kinds. Given that humankind is already over-exploiting the environmental underpinnings of our economies and cutting back the wellbeing of future generations (possibly for as long as one thousand years in the case of global warming), any reduction of this burden is to be warmly welcomed. The author refrains from laying out the scope of this profound threat to all our futures since readers of the Pop!ulation Press will have long been familiar with the dire details. Suffice it to say that while the question is covered in just a single paragraph here, it is to be viewed as at least as important as all the rest of the article put together. In fact numerous experts such as Paul and Anne Ehrlich, David Pimentel and John Holdren have urged that Europe and America should consider a long-term commitment to cutting back on its human numbers in light of its drain on planetary resources.

Finally, note the role of religion in all this. Certain Moslem countries bordering Europe's eastern and southern sides tend to have high fertility rates, often four children or more, primarily because of the disadvantaged status of women. How about the Catholic Church? Well, the country with the smallest family size, just 1.2 children, is Italy; and the part of Italy with the smallest family size is Rome. Guess which part of Rome has the smallest family size.

Norman Myers, renowned British scientist, is a Fellow of Oxford University, England. He has published over 300 papers and 17 books. In 1999 he was honored with the Order of St. Michael and St. George by Queen Elizabeth for "services to the global environment." He has received the UNEP Environment Prize, the Volvo Environment Prize and, most recently, the 2001 Blue Planet Prize for being "the first to alert the world to the mass extinction underway, and warning of many other fundamental challenges."