Europe’s long-expected demographic decline has begun.
The trend, caused by decreasing fertility rates and higher life expectancy among EU citizens, is expected to drain state budgets and force governments to significantly reform their immigration, social security and healthcare policies.Deaths will outnumber births from 2015 onward, stymying natural population growth on the continent, according to a study released Aug. 26 by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office. The report does not come as a surprise for most experts and governments, which are already scrambling to find a solution. “The study should serve as a warning and push governments to [work at] a faster pace,” said Vladimír Pekárek, a sociologist at Charles University. “They now have a very accurate time frame in which they have to solve all impeding problems.”The current prognoses are pessimistic: Until 2035, immigration will be able to offset the birthing decrease, allowing Europe to grow from the current 495 million inhabitants, peaking at 521 million. After that, however, not even an influx of immigrants will be able to curb the decline. By 2060, only 506 million people will populate the current 27 EU states.In addition to the overall decline, Europe’s population is projected to become significantly older in the next 52 years due to persistently low fertility rates and an increase in life expectancy. While only 17 percent of Europe’s current population is older than 65, this number may climb to 30 percent by 2060. The Czech Republic is expected to follow this general pattern, losing 8 percent of its inhabitants by 2060. Over 33 percent of Czech citizens will be older than 65, and 13 percent of the population will be over 80. Birthing dearthDespite the alarming statistics, Pekárek is not afraid of the future, and even sees benefits in an older population. “An aging population is not necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “Older people grow wiser and change their pace of living. The resulting society should be safer and free of consumerism.” Predominantly, the trend will pressure governments to work harder in order to accommodate a large population of pensioners. Postponing the retirement age is only the first step in an arduous process of institutional and social reforms. “Changing the law is simple, but convincing employers that older workers are still worthwhile and creating an environment in which older people will want to work is going to be much harder,” said Pekárek. He also pointed out that older people will be limited to particular niches in the labor force. “It is hard to imagine a 65-year-old man digging up a street with a shovel or some other heavy [labor],” he said. “The state will have to invest millions into re-qualification programs.”While gearing towards an older population, governments will also have to come up with new family-friendly policies in order to encourage young people to have more children. “Countries in the former Eastern Bloc will be especially hit by a lack of young, qualified people entering the labor market,” said Pekárek. “Governments should invest as much as possible in education and family support, because that is the only way to ensure that there will be a future.”So far, this aspect of the necessary reforms seems to have eluded local policy makers. Although the Czech government is working on a pension reform plan, it seems to have all but forgotten the younger generation. The country has experienced a baby boom of late, but according to Pekárek, this temporary increase in birth rates is just false hope — a residual effect of communist president Gustav Husák’s campaign to raise birth rates in Czechoslovakia during the 1970s.“The so-called ‘Husák’s children’ born in the ’70s were having kids [recently], and because there were so many of them, it looked for a while as if the birthrate would go up,” Pekárek said. “But younger people are now putting off family life for as long as possible because of economical reasons.”According to Pekárek, younger people are afraid of bringing kids into a world where the government is diminishing state support for young families. “The state wants school fees for kindergarten, refuses to subsidize milk in schools and charges for doctor visits,” he said. “Individually, the payments are small, but they add up, especially if a family has more children. No wonder that there aren’t enough kids when the state is hindering potential parents at every corner.”
(Prague Post)
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