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Why is Europe losing the will to breed?

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Comments

  • #62
    Wanderer78
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,728 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    ligerdub wrote:
    I appreciate the old days weren't a utopia by any means but I stand by the claim that "progress" hasn't been progress.


    Great post, it shows in one sense, we haven't progressed at all, in fact the opposite has occurred. We're now in serious trouble, I'd have to agree with somebody like Steve keen that private debt is almost out of control and must be reigned in. We have progressed in many ways but we're getting the basics wrong, it's time to go back to the drawing board


  • #63
    daithi7
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,636 ✭✭✭daithi7


    RayCun wrote: »
    When women have the opportunity to get an education and a job, they take it. Naturally.

    When women have the opportunity to control their fertility, instead of being constantly pregnant, they take it. Of course.

    So families start later and are smaller. Europe is further along this road than some other places, that's all.

    Nothing wrong with this, unless you are particularly attached to skin colour.

    Yes, this is all true and I agree with you.

    Also there is the factor that previous generations had higher child morbidity and worse health care outcomes, so families opted to have a few extra kids in case anything happened to any of them. (For instance, my father lost 2 out of 7 siblings before they were 10 & this was not uncommon).

    There are a few big issues with declining birth rates that make me a bit uneasy
    1. Aging populations=> more old people being supported by less working people => lower quality of life for all than otherwise = not good

    2. By funding those on welfare& benefits to have unlimited kids, & since those higher up the socio-economic scales are not reproducing themselves at a sufficient rate, we are (like it or loathe it) ensuring the next generation has more tracksuit wearing knackers than well educated, good mannered bright young things.

    Apologies I know this isn't the PC thing to point out, but it's the reality, and I don't think it's a good trend at all tbh.


  • #64
    andekwarhola
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,687 ✭✭✭andekwarhola


    Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »
    Although to add to that I can't really see the point of having children if both parents are going to work 9-5 or more and then ship the children off to spend all their time at a childcare centre.

    Because unless we can quickly produce a clone army on the fly to provide the next generation of taxpayers/workers to populate society in your old age, a certain amount of the population have to take the financial hit and provide them.

    While listening to everybody else begrudging every single cent you get for doing so. :)


  • #65
    R.D. aka MR.D
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,643 ✭✭✭R.D. aka MR.D


    ligerdub wrote: »

    2017:

    People buy "starter homes". They don't set down in a place and think about being connected to the area. They haven't had any kids because Johnny and Mary have career aspirations and work far longer than their contract suggest. Mary is sold the lie that her career making spreadsheets about company income trends is as important as raising a family. The bank bases a mortgage off 2 incomes and a higher multiple of it leading to more expensive housing rather than more accessible ones. The higher mortgage means less disposable income. There is nobody to look after their one child so they use what money they have to send her to an expensive creche. The creche is expensive because some regulation dictates that there can't be a child to minder ratio greater than X. People buy housing for investments. Institutions buy residential housing for investments and the government encourage it. The government do little social housing. Mortgages are 30 to 35 years long and people take them in their 30s. The family is unhappy and less connected.

    What about Johnny's career? Is his raising a family less than the importance of having a career? Or is it just better that women were expected to stay in the home in the 60's?

    Men are just as capable at raising a family as women are and women are just as capable of having careers. And they can find both fulfilling.


  • #66
    Irish Praetorian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,745 ✭✭✭Irish Praetorian


    R.D. aka MR.D wrote: »
    Studies have shown that in the US at least the immigrants tend to have as many children as they would in their home country when they first arrive but as they go down the generations their children born there have the same as the average person in their new country. As another poster pointed out the spread of education and opportunities for women will likely result in lower birth rates everywhere.

    If you look at Japan who refuse to open their country to immigrants, they are already having huge problems. Way too many old people and Japan as a country will eventually disappear because of it and the last generations will suffer a great burden.

    On the former point generally yes, but again this leaves us back at the second problem which means wealth becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of a few, to sya nothing of the problem of social tensions inherent in continually importing new people to fill the gaps.

    Also on the Japan point, yes Japan does have problems, but I'm not sure they are anything comparable to the problems faced by Western Europe in terms of tensions, terrorism and segregation.


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  • #67
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 45,738 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Faith+1 wrote: »
    Love the use of the word breeding......makes us sound like dogs.

    Although I know plenty who look like one,myself included!

    Don't be so ruff on yourself.


  • #68
    R.D. aka MR.D
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,643 ✭✭✭R.D. aka MR.D


    Irish Praetorian wrote: »
    On the former point generally yes, but again this leaves us back at the second problem which means wealth becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of a few, to sya nothing of the problem of social tensions inherent in continually importing new people to fill the gaps.

    Also on the Japan point, yes Japan does have problems, but I'm not sure they are anything comparable to the problems faced by Western Europe in terms of tensions, terrorism and segregation.

    I agree that social tensions are a problem and that is why I genuinely believe that nationalism needs to be framed in a different way. I think education systems need to be changed. Growing up in Ireland, I was taught to be very nationalistic, taught about how great the Irish were, later in school taught how reigniting the idea of 'Irishness' helped us win our independence.

    People are only upset about immigration because they lack the ability to think critically about the situation. They are unable to think about the positives and come up with solutions to ensure that everyone can live together.

    For example, I have seen people here on AH say that children of immigrants in Ireland aren't Irish. My husband is american and the son of an immigrant but no one in the US would say that he isn't American. He was born and raised there. They have their own problems over there but at least they understand that being American is something you can become rather than some weird biological thing.


  • #69
    doolox
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,345 ✭✭✭doolox


    There is great risks in having children and this is not recognised sufficiently by society in terms of supports or endorsements in the modern workplace.

    Employers generally resent having to cover for periods of pregnancy, small child minding or days needed to attend to a sick child. Most prefer the trouble free service of a single person preferably one who devotes all their time to the work instead of personal life.

    Homemaking men are still viewed as a curious novelty at best or as a career failure at worst and can face isolation and ridicule in the face of a society which views female childminding as "normal" and anything else as abnormal.

    In many cases the earning power of women and certainly their academic performance and qualification attainments are better than many of their partners and in many cases the husbands earnings and job security are less than their partners so it would be logical that the husband should handle most of the family child minding activities but this seldom happens on a large scale.

    Short of licencing childbirth and enforcing contraception or sexual abstinence or enforcing termination on "illegal" conceptions I cannot see any sane way to limit family numbers in Ireland. People can be resentful of large families all they want but there does not seem to be any way to prevent it happening.
    It must also be kept in mind that the children are individuals who had no choice in their existence or family circumstances, did nothing wrong and need all the support they can get.
    It should be possible, but highly controversial, to arrange things so that the monies intended for child support should be difficult to divert towards frivilous or even at times illegal use by the parents for their own entertainment or diversion such as being used for drink, drugs or gambling etc.

    Attempts to do this in the States with direct provision of housing, food stamps etc can be got around and nothing short of direct supervision and State care would work but these have their own tragic set of problems with institutional violence and sex abuse happening in many cases when such arrangements were tried in Ireland in the last century.


  • #70
    Wanderer78
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,728 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    R.D. aka MR.D wrote:
    I agree that social tensions are a problem and that is why I genuinely believe that nationalism needs to be framed in a different way. I think education systems need to be changed. Growing up in Ireland, I was taught to be very nationalistic, taught about how great the Irish were, later in school taught how reigniting the idea of 'Irishness' helped us win our independence.


    Our educational system is a disgrace, hard to know where to start with it


  • #71
    Irish Praetorian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,745 ✭✭✭Irish Praetorian


    R.D. aka MR.D wrote: »
    No, why would I?

    Irish culture is already changing. Yes some things that are changing are bad but some things are really good. Culture changes through time. Ireland of the 1920's was different to Ireland of the 1950's and all different from 1617 and 2017.

    What makes a country yours? Being born there? Irish people will never be in the minority in Ireland because the people that immigrate and have children will still be Irish.

    I understand that people are very nationalist. I just don't agree with it. Each individual country isn't some special snowflake devoid of influence and benefit from another.

    I suspect people are concerned not because culture within the state might be changing, rather because that culture might be changing for the worse. Simply put, having seen the contrasting cases of Europe versus Japan, the Japanese model looks more and more appealing. Consider for example our neighbours the Brits; half a century of migration from across the world and you run the gamut of successfully integrated individuals to terrorists seeking the destruction of their purported home.


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  • #72
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,244 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    R.D. aka MR.D wrote: »
    The consumption and therefore damage to the earth of a european child is far greater than that of those born in less wealthy places. So is it really so terrible that there are fewer of us?
    I see this kind of argument regularly, and it always fails to account for the fact that consumption is related to wealth. Yes, people in less-wealthy countries spend less and do less environmental damage, but it's not that they're superior or more virtuous in any way, it's simply because they can't consume more. If they could, they would, and we're seeing this happen in countries such as India, China and Nigeria.

    We're all the same in that regard. The past is past, but for the future no-one "deserves" to consume more than anyone else. Give poor people the chance to consume like Westerners, and they jump on it.

    Government resting upon the will and universal suffrage of the people has no anchorage except in the people's intelligence.

    — Grover Cleveland



  • #73
    NiallBoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,504 ✭✭✭NiallBoo


    Irish Praetorian wrote: »
    Consider for example our neighbours the Brits; half a century of migration from across the world and you run the gamut of successfully integrated individuals to terrorists seeking the destruction of their purported home.

    British/UK people trying to blow stuff up is absolutely nothing new.

    Think about the IRA 30 years ago.
    Heck, think about Guy Fawkes 400 years ago.


  • #74
    Irish Praetorian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,745 ✭✭✭Irish Praetorian


    R.D. aka MR.D wrote: »
    I agree that social tensions are a problem and that is why I genuinely believe that nationalism needs to be framed in a different way. I think education systems need to be changed. Growing up in Ireland, I was taught to be very nationalistic, taught about how great the Irish were, later in school taught how reigniting the idea of 'Irishness' helped us win our independence.

    People are only upset about immigration because they lack the ability to think critically about the situation. They are unable to think about the positives and come up with solutions to ensure that everyone can live together.

    For example, I have seen people here on AH say that children of immigrants in Ireland aren't Irish. My husband is American and the son of an immigrant but no one in the US would say that he isn't American. He was born and raised there. They have their own problems over there but at least they understand that being American is something you can become rather than some weird biological thing.

    I must confess this might be a generational thing but I found the education system really didn't go too heavy on the Irish nationalism after Primary Level. Now don't get me wrong, history tends to be covered quite superficially even at second level, but I don't think we have the same kind of nationalism of other countries or even of bygone eras. There is a certain swaggering pride that endures, but I've never seen it employed to create a sense of superiority (one exception to this would be our relationship with England).

    But to your central point, I think it might be doing a considerable disservice to people in suggesting they only have complaints about migration because they cannot 'think the right way' about it. I mean this is really flying in the face of say the case in England, where relations between the established working class and newly arrived groups can in cases be little better than tribal warfare. It's all well and good to speak of the need for integration, but it is not simply a case of host countries lavishing integration on other groups, there are limiting factors.


  • #75
    R.D. aka MR.D
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,643 ✭✭✭R.D. aka MR.D


    Irish Praetorian wrote: »
    I suspect people are concerned not because culture within the state might be changing, rather because that culture might be changing for the worse. Simply put, having seen the contrasting cases of Europe versus Japan, the Japanese model looks more and more appealing. Consider for example our neighbours the Brits; half a century of migration from across the world and you run the gamut of successfully integrated individuals to terrorists seeking the destruction of their purported home.

    The Japanese are extremely xenophobic and I'd rather not be that. The British model is terrible, they really ****ed up and it is sad to see that we in Ireland seem to be copying them. :mad:

    If people think their culture is changing for the worse then they need to do something about it but it's not positive to include xenophobia in your culture. That's for the worse too.


  • #76
    Wanderer78
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,728 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    bnt wrote:
    We're all the same in that regard. The past is past, but for the future no-one "deserves" to consume more than anyone else. Give poor people the chance to consume like Westerners, and they jump on it.


    We have to stop this consumption nonsense or our planet will be wrecked


  • #77
    ancapailldorcha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 45,447 ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    Wanderer78 wrote: »
    Our educational system is a disgrace, hard to know where to start with it

    Easy. Cut out the stuff that yields no long term benefit and look at implementing an evidence-based model. A fantasy but that is your solution.

    The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

    Leviticus 19:34



  • #78
    ligerdub
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,585 ✭✭✭ligerdub


    R.D. aka MR.D wrote:
    What about Johnny's career? Is his raising a family less than the importance of having a career? Or is it just better that women were expected to stay in the home in the 60's?

    R.D. aka MR.D wrote:
    Men are just as capable at raising a family as women are and women are just as capable of having careers. And they can find both fulfilling.


    I hear what you're saying, and that's grand. These things have a habit of going down the rabbit hole in this area (which I'd say has onlookers roll their eyes at) so I think it best if I just leave it to my original post.


  • #79
    Irish Praetorian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,745 ✭✭✭Irish Praetorian


    NiallBoo wrote: »
    British/UK people trying to blow stuff up is absolutely nothing new.

    Think about the IRA 30 years ago.
    Heck, think about Guy Fawkes 400 years ago.

    What about them? I mean are you seriously trying to make the point that Brits just need to hush up and accept a certain level of terrorism because Guy Fawkes (who incidentally failed to blow up Parliament) didn't like James I?


  • #80
    R.D. aka MR.D
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,643 ✭✭✭R.D. aka MR.D


    bnt wrote: »
    I see this kind of argument regularly, and it always fails to account for the fact that consumption is related to wealth. Yes, people in less-wealthy countries spend less and do less environmental damage, but it's not that they're superior or more virtuous in any way, it's simply because they can't consume more. If they could, they would, and we're seeing this happen in countries such as India, China and Nigeria.

    We're all the same in that regard. The past is past, but for the future no-one "deserves" to consume more than anyone else. Give poor people the chance to consume like Westerners, and they jump on it.

    I think when it comes to climate change and the environment the intention etc behind the pollution doesn't really matter. What matter is that it happens.

    You can't justify polluting because if the people who pollute less had a chance to pollute more, then they would.


  • #81
    Wanderer78
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,728 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    ancapailldorcha wrote:
    Easy. Cut out the stuff that yields no long term benefit and look at implementing an evidence-based model. A fantasy but that is your solution.


    Our planet is effectively dying and strangely, if it dies, we die! Do we actually want this to happen?


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  • #82
    R.D. aka MR.D
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,643 ✭✭✭R.D. aka MR.D


    Irish Praetorian wrote: »

    But to your central point, I think it might be doing a considerable disservice to people in suggesting they only have complaints about migration because they cannot 'think the right way' about it. I mean this is really flying in the face of say the case in England, where relations between the established working class and newly arrived groups can in cases be little better than tribal warfare. It's all well and good to speak of the need for integration, but it is not simply a case of host countries lavishing integration on other groups, there are limiting factors.

    As I stated in another post, nobody should be advocating a free for all on immigration. I despise the British model and it's clear now that their approach doesn't work. What I mean is that we all need to think of a way to embrace immigration which we need. It's fine for people to say 'white europeans should have more babies' but unless you drag women's rights back a century, or pull men's rights forward a century then it's unlikely to happen.


  • #83
    wakka12
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,786 ✭✭✭wakka12


    Johnboner wrote: »
    Europe is one of the most overpopulated regions in the world in terms of density. Of course they are stopping breeding due to not enough space. Ireland is exempt as millions died during the famine, but other countries kept breeding and breeding non stop until ridiculous levels of density. So why being less populated is a bad thing I have no idea.

    Being less densely populated is not a bad thing. Its the breakdown of working society that this involves that is the problem. With current trends we will end up with huge population of pensioners and less and less people of working age, and less young people and children to keep schools, clubs and other facilities going. You need a diverse age range in any society to keep it functioning. So that is the problem, ageing society, not the countries becoming less densely populated. You are over simplifying a complex issue that will have profound impacts on european society


  • #84
    NiallBoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,504 ✭✭✭NiallBoo


    Irish Praetorian wrote: »
    What about them? I mean are you seriously trying to make the point that Brits just need to hush up and accept a certain level of terrorism because Guy Fawkes (who incidentally failed to blow up Parliament) didn't like James I?


    Just pointing out that it's not something new that's happening as a result of immigration in the last 50 years and "culture changing for the worse", as you were suggesting.


  • #85
    Irish Praetorian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,745 ✭✭✭Irish Praetorian


    R.D. aka MR.D wrote: »
    The Japanese are extremely xenophobic and I'd rather not be that. The British model is terrible, they really ****ed up and it is sad to see that we in Ireland seem to be copying them. :mad:

    If people think their culture is changing for the worse then they need to do something about it but it's not positive to include xenophobia in your culture. That's for the worse too.

    The logical choice is clearly to learn from the mistakes of Japan and Britain in order that we might not repeat their mistakes. Xenophobia would be a poor outcome but quite frankly it looks less and less problematic every day than the course taken by Western European societies. I submit the best course is a balanced one, avoiding the closed doors of Japan and the mass importation of Europe.


  • #86
    NiallBoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,504 ✭✭✭NiallBoo


    ancapailldorcha wrote: »
    Easy. Cut out the stuff that yields no long term benefit and look at implementing an evidence-based model. A fantasy but that is your solution.

    You'll be shutting down boards.ie then?


  • #87
    Irish Praetorian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,745 ✭✭✭Irish Praetorian


    NiallBoo wrote: »
    Just pointing out that it's not something new that's happening as a result of immigration in the last 50 years and "culture changing for the worse", as you were suggesting.

    Indeed it is not 'new', yet the question stands as to whether a society should make choices with outcomes that lead to the continuation of that trend, or if perhaps the presence of that trend means that society needs to stop and reflect upon what it is doing.


  • #88
    fg1406
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 433 ✭✭fg1406


    I'm the product of working parents, as in both my mother and father worked outside of the home for my entire childhood. I didn't suffer at all because my mother and Father were in work from 9-5. They had to work if they wanted to pay for the roof over their heads.
    The cost of childcare in this country is so prohibitively expensive for so many. A colleague took a career break 3 years ago because after her 2nd child she couldn't afford the crèche so she stayed at home until she got the eldest into school. Should children's allowance be replaced by a tax relief system for childcare for mothers who want to work but can't? (Also why is it always the mothers!!)
    Or children's allowance be limited to be paid say for the 1st 3 kids or 4 kids, not in a way to stop people having kids but as in "the state will support your choice of family size, but only to a point" to maybe disincentivise the "I breed them, you feed them" attitude that prevails amongst some people (including members of my own extended family).


  • #89
    Atlantic Dawn
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,596 ✭✭✭✭Atlantic Dawn
    GDY151


    Classic of the entitlement attitude from some people in a thread I seen here earlier, poster is not happy with getting a 2 bed apartment in Kilmainham for €25 a week (yes a week) as she would prefer The Liberties, meanwhile I know a working couple with 1 kid on a combined €100k salary that can only afford to rent a house in north county Dublin and struggle with the commute to the city centre every day, clearly not doing a tap of work pays and bloody pays well.
    Hi everyone
    I've been offered a two bed roof apartment through council
    I've always lived in a cottage and a bit nervous of moving to be honest half excitement of having my first real home I really love kilmainham and the history the great grounds and the fact it's near beautiful parks I really wanted the liberties
    It's in kilmainham
    Any words on my fears
    It's 25 a week
    I'm nervous about noise and whether I should decline the offer for what I was hoping for in liberties


    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057695911


  • #90
    daithi7
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,636 ✭✭✭daithi7


    I think social benefits should taper off significantly after say 3 or 4 children say.

    I don't think it's anyway equitable to be asking young professional women to work well into their thirties before they might then be fortunate enough to be able to afford a nice house, a marriage/partnership, when their job is secure enough and that their reproductive health is still good enough to have maybe 1 or 2 kids, all the while, while their taxes are used to support tracksuit wearing moms who've rarely/never worked and have 5 kids by 30 in a council house & all the other plethora of social benefits e.g. medical cards, etc, in the same city.

    That's simply not fair, or anyway desirable from a society point of view imho.


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  • #91
    wakka12
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,786 ✭✭✭wakka12


    And I don't think theres really any big conspiracy contributing to these low birth rates. If you just look around, youll see how few people are good candidates for having over two children.
    You have women/men who feel they are a bit too old to have children and didnt get to have them when young, people struggling with money, people who only want one/two children, gay/lesbian people who find it hard to have surrogates /adoptions, infertile people, people who cant find a partner to marry, people who just don't want kids. And then when you consider how expensive children are it makes having more than 2 kids a bit unfeasible.

    So when you consider how few couples are financially stable, happily together , young and fertile, and feel that two kids are enough then its very easy to see how a lot of european countries have birth rates below 2.1!


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