The Population Research Institute (PRI) would never say, “I told you so,” but they’ve been telling the world so for a while now, and the latest news about plummeting birth rates in Germany only makes their persistent alarm all the more prophetic.
This past spring, the Hamburg Institute for International Economics (HIIE) and German auditing firm BDO released a report indicating that Germany now surpasses Japan as the country with the lowest birthrate on the globe.
Responding to this crisis, the secular world points to another crisis as a solution; namely, the growing number of immigrant refugees from the Middle East and specifically Syria, mostly consisting of Muslims, serving as an answer to a prayer, or at least as a solution to an economic need.
But will introducing into German society an immigrant group that has historically resisted assimilation in other European countries only compound Deutschland’s problems?
Winter chill
According to Andre Mitchell in a June 2 Christianity Today article, “Germany becomes the land with the lowest birth rate in the world,” although the European Union’s economic powerhouse has a native population of 82 million, based on forecasts of this same precious asset – people, Germany’s future looks bleak.
Citing the HIIE report, Mitchell writes that “an average of 8.2 children were born per 1,000 citizens over the past five years in the European nation,” passing Japan (8.4 live births per 1,000 citizens from 2008 to 2013) as the country with the lowest birth rates on the globe.
“Germany recorded the lowest birthrate in the world from 2008 to 2013, and this will likely have a negative impact on the country’s economy, a study released last week showed,” Mitchell reports. “An earlier report in The Guardian said Germany’s population will likely be reduced by 12 million by 2060. In contrast, the report said the French population will rise to almost 72 million by that year.”
More than a decade ago, PRI’s founder Steven Mosher had predicted Europe’s plight in his 2003 book Population Control – Real Costs, Illusory Benefits.
“On the fantasy island of overpopulation human numbers are always exploding, but a close look at the real world reveals a different reality,” Mosher writes. “The unprecedented fall in fertility rates that began in post-war Europe has, in the decades since, spread to every corner of the globe, affecting China, India, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The latest forecasts by the United Nations show the number of people in the world shrinking by mid-century, that is, before today’s young adults reach retirement age. Many nations, especially in Europe, are already in a death spiral, losing a significant number of people each year.”
As German Chancellor Angela Merkel struggles for a solution to the coming decline of her country’s fortunes, German lawmakers are focusing on ways to prevent disaster at the source.
Mitchell writes that, at Merkel’s instigation, the German government “has not been remiss in encouraging Germans to make more babies and setting aside funds for that purpose. But the government appears unable to reverse the trend. Analysts said the problem could be due to a variety of factors including insufficient infrastructure, such as not enough daycare centers, and workplace conditions not conducive for working mothers.”
Help or hindrance?
Help may be on the way for Germany as Middle Eastern refugees stream into Europe, many making a beeline for the German borders.
In a Sept. 10 International Business Times story, Lydia Tomkiw writes that, of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees expected to arrive in Europe, the majority will go to Germany.
“German officials have said they expect approximately 800,000 refugees this year—the most within the EU,” Tomkiw writes. “The EU’s most populous country and biggest economy faces a looming population decline. Germany has estimated that by 2050 there will be two working people for every retiree—a gap that could be filled by immigration. Chancellor Angela Merkel sees the influx of refugees as a positive sign. ‘If we do it well, this will bring more opportunities than risks,’ she said.”
While Syrian immigrants may lend a helping hand to Germany’s economy, the author of Citizens of the Heavenly City, a compendium of papal writings on the Church’s social teachings, Arthur Hippler tells Catholic Business Journal if such help seems too good to be true, it very well could be.
Citing Somali-Dutch activist and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography Infidel: My Life, Hippler says that, historically, Muslim immigrants have had a problem assimilating into European culture.
“Ali identified the problem of honor killings among Muslim enclaves in Holland,” he says. “No one in Holland’s ruling class wants to touch that issue because they don’t want to impose their way of life on immigrant Muslims, even to the point of homicide, abuse of women, and violation of women’s rights. It’s the rejection of those propositions by the ruling class of a country which makes immigration unworkable.”
The Principle of Cooperation
Ideally, Hippler says, migrants and host country ought to cooperate in assimilation, citing a 1941 radio address by Pope Pius XII on the 50th anniversary of Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical on capital and labor, Rerum Novarum.
“If the two parties, those who agree to leave their native land and those who agree to admit the newcomers,” Pius XII said, “remain anxious to eliminate as far as possible all obstacles to the birth and growth of real confidence between the country of emigration and that of immigration, all those affected by such transference of people and places will profit by the transaction.”
Unless Germany heeds this principle of cooperation, Hippler says, neither migrants nor the host country will benefit.
“Migration works well when you have a host country which has a way of life to offer, and lovingly and generously helps people who come to it to adopt that way of life,” he says. “There is also an openness on the part of the people migrating—part of the reason they’re migrating is because they’re open to this new way of life and not just portable versions of their own home country. These are the issues that Germany must consider if it wants to address the problem of low birth rates by filling the void with immigrants.”
These issues also underscore Mosher’s understanding of the real population crisis—the coming demographic winter which will have an impact beyond economic matters to the foundations of Western culture.
“This is the real population crisis,” he says. “This population implosion, by reducing the amount of human capital available, will have a dramatic impact on every aspect of life.”
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Population Research Institute, putting people first
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BUY NOW FROM AMAZON:
- Infidel: My Life, by Ayaan Hirsi Alii
- Citizens of the Heavenly City, by Arthur Hippler
- Population Control – Real Costs, Illusory Benefits, by Steven Mosher
- Rerum Novarum, encyclical on Capital and Labor by Pope Leo XIII
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Joseph O’Brien is a Catholic Business Journal correspondent.