The EU has just released its new demographic projections (pdf, 4 pages)
The conclusion is simple: France and the UK are the next power couple of Europe.
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faute de combattants, as they say in France (for lack of fighters – elsewhere)…
So will they fight or will they talk?
Over the next two decades the total population of the EU25 is expected to increase by more than 13 million inhabitants, from 456.8 million on 1 January 2004 to 470.1 million on 1 January 2025. Population growth in the EU25 until 2025 will be mainly due to net migration, since total deaths in the EU25 will outnumber total births from 2010. The effect of net migration will no longer outweigh the natural decrease after 2025, when the population will start to decline gradually. The population will reach 449.8 million on 1 January 2050, that is a decrease of more than 20 million inhabitants compared to 2025. Over the whole projection period the EU25 population will decrease by 1.5%, resulting from a 0.4% increase for the EU15 and a 11.7% decrease for the ten new Member States.
This will be the first time ever that you have a peace time decline in the population of a significant polity, so it is an event with fairly unpredictable consequences.
It is usually addressed either by people who worry about the financial balance of the pensions plans, as the number of older people grows in absolute and relative terms, and by demagogues who fuel the fears about immigration.
Isn’t it time that we had a real debate about what kind of society we want? How will we care for our elders? Who will care for them? Will they even need to be cared for (as all studies show that people live older AND healthier until the last few months of their lifes)? And what kind of politics will that bring?
And as far as France and the UK are concerned, the fact that they will be the only two large countries in Europe (possibly with Turkey) with populations still growing will give them a lot more clout then the declining powers like Germany, and it is going to lead to interesting realignments of interests within the union. We’ll see, especially as I am doubtful of the population growth of the UK in virw of their recent natality rates, which have declined significantly in the past 5-10 years. We’ll see.
Jerome, I guess this is a good place to shill for my brother’s book on this topic.
My brother’s book.
thanks for the flag, although I certainly don’t promise to go have a look! (I haven’t read a book in too long, that activity has been replaced by blogging, I”m afraid…)
It is a fundamental question in my view. Maybe you can ask your brother to post a diary about his book?!
This diary combined with your diaries about the French EU Referendum, my own reading, the UK election diaries of Welshman and his cohorts, are giving me a very strange feeling.
In 1789 France was the largest population country in Europe, the Napoleonic wars of the next quarter century were fueled by that in part. France’s percentage of the total population of Europe declined over the next century as Germany’s greatly expanded. France and Germany fought four great murderous wars in a century and a half.
During that same time the UK’s population expanded greatly, the pressure partly relieved by emigration. Britain was the ultimate expansionist in that period.
The two World Wars arose from multiple causes (How many dissertations?), always riding with other causes were economics and population pressure. I don’t need a chrystal ball to see the possible pattern if the EU doesn’t truly go forward to integration. If there is no real accomodation between France and Britain, the rest of the EU will be jerked back and forth. At best it would be endless tension, at worst, war.
Yes, troubling times, and a French “No” in the referendum would be a stark sign of the return to more nationalistic, selfish policies.
This subject hit the radar in Germany for about a NY minute in 2003, when a study by the Statistisches Bundesamt released a study came to the same conclusion as that published here – but assuming a net migration rate that is politically extremely inopportune. Since then the issue itself has been largely ignored, even as the affected social programs (health/long-term care ins, pensions, support for families, what have you) have been the subjects of ongoing tinkering and debate.
Eurostat’s statistics tend to have a fairly wide margin of error – for example I would like to see how much of the growth in the UK is by immigration from Commonwealth countries and what contribution the overseas Departements make to the French figures. However your point is a problem that will have to be addressed.
As you say, in purely practical terms there will be a need for a cohort of younger people to provide care for the frail elderly whose numbers are likely to increase and to maintain the manufacturing and services base.
There are two possible areas to help balance the population profile. The first is the new accession countries and I note Eurostat has only included the two immediate candidate nations in its statistics. Turkey (from memory) has a very young population and is quite likely to be part of an EU32 by late next decade. Here I am assuming that three of the former Yugoslav republics at least plus Georgia and Ukraine will either be full members of have quasi membership. We should also asume that by 2050 the EU will be at 35 to 40 members taking in countries that are currently among the poorest but labourforce rich like Albania and Belarus. By then we will also be looking at more flexible labour movement between Russian and the EU, perhaps starting by properly addressing the Kaliningrad question.
Eastward expansion is however finiite. The limits are likely to be the countries bordering the Black Sea although one should at least look at the possibility of including Lebanon as it is at least European in atitude as Turkey and is part of the ancient trading structure. Without population projections for all the countries west of the Urals it is difficult to properly discuss the long term future of the EU.
The other area that could provide a labour force is the countries of the old colonial possessions. Here there is a need to organise the movement of labour in a more sophisticated and sensitive way than has been the case in the past. If we are to employ nurses and doctors for example, it should be mutually beneficial of providing training and experience for them to use when they return to their homelands. We should not be just taking the best trained and permanantly settling them as has happened in the past. There is also a case for using the countries of North Africa to provide retirement communities, in much the same way as Florida is to the rest of the USA.
It appears that Germany is taking up the fight. On today’s news there was major talk about a speech by our chancellor Schröder, who wants to make Germany the “children-friendliest country in the EU by 2010.” (He really likes the date 2010, but I digress.)
So far it’s only hot talk and we’ll have to see what will come out of this in the long run.
Population growth is usually discussed under an economic frame as Jerome has hinted. In Germany often the question boils down to “how will we pay for all these old people in the future, when they’re not enough kids and working people around.”
However France and I think Sweden, too, have shown that you can stimulate population growth by providing a friendly environment for families. At least, that’s what we hear and read over here. I think that this can have lots of good side benefits, e.g. a better socialization (and therefore better behavior) of children, from which society can profit as a whole. Of course, having a good economy, helps too.
So I hope that the Schröder speech wasn’t just talk, after all.
By the time Turkey actually joins the EU (assuming that a French Non has not scuttled the club) it will probably be the single largest member in terms of population and will will almost certainly have the highest population growth rate. That will change the situation.
The other thing that forecasts such as this cannot factor for is huge unexpected gains in longevity, which seem almost certain over the next two to four decades.
From my personal experience here in Germany, our family has been hit hard with the introduction of the Euro. Small example: before the currency change, a Streifenkarte (strip card) for the train cost 14.50 DM. A Streifenkarte now costs 10 Euros(abt 19.45 DM). I have seen the same price increase in food, clothes, etc.
As a result, our disposable income has gone down. This has really hurt the economy which makes it more difficult for people to have children.
Pretty much the same happened in Austria – prices increased. There the birth rate declined before joining the EU. (BTW England gets almost all of its EU dues back, whereas most other countries pay heavily – the richer ones anyway.)
Why Hausfrau? Just curious.
Great question. I just don’t know the answer. Perhaps Jerome does. Jerome? Ou es tu? Sorry, I have no idea how to do accent marks here.
If you have a European language program I think you can copy from Word or similar program to get the accents.
Was ich aber meinte- wieso Du Dir den Namen Hausfrau ausgesucht hast?