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I mean good lord, at the current birth rate many European countries could lose over 20% of there population in the next 40 years. Also in countries with high immigrant influx ethnic Europeans could become a minority in their own country. If this immigrants are high skilled and willing to accept western cultures this might not be an issue but if there are there will continue to be conflict. It seems Europe badly needs another baby boom or they could face a serious economic crisis.
It's mostly a disagreement who is going to take care of the kids. If more European men could be convinced to be equal partners in raising children, fertility rates should start to recover on their own.
Other factors:
The marriage rates have fallen dramatically in most major European countries over the past decade or two. Some are the lowest in modern history.
Young people today want "independence without responsibility". This is a society which is obsessed with having options – they want to test everything first and having children is obviously something you can't test in advance.
Raising kids is expensive, and if you don't have secure employment and there isn't affordable housing, you won't have kids. Also in some countries it's difficult to create a balance between work and family.
For some former Eastern European countries the reason in simple: all their child-bearing age people have left the country.
But the biological urge of having kids will never end. The situation will stabilise itself at some point.
It not just happening in Europe but Japan, and even there are some Middle Eastern countries birth rates that are below replacement level (such as Iran). Modern society has evolved where people think it is wise to wait later in life to have children, and due to that many will never have children.
]It's mostly a disagreement who is going to take care of the kids. If more European men could be convinced to be equal partners in raising children, fertility rates should start to recover on their own.
[/b]Other factors:
The marriage rates have fallen dramatically in most major European countries over the past decade or two. Some are the lowest in modern history.
Young people today want "independence without responsibility". This is a society which is obsessed with having options – they want to test everything first and having children is obviously something you can't test in advance.
Men are more involved in childcare in Sweden, yet fertility rates haven't recovered. There must be other factors at work, such as marriage rates falling or marriage being postponed (though having kids while cohabiting, and getting the marriage document later is a trend there, so marriage is somewhat irrelevant), later child-bearing age, and perhaps--more 1-child families? I don't know how this compares to Norway or Denmark.
Many reasons. Cultural being one. The less religious tend to not see a reason to be married. People of birthing age tend to like to party which is the opposite lifestyle of those raising families. Economic. The more kids you have now, the more expensive it is and takes money away from other things. Urbanization as its harder to have more kids in a cramped apartment. Universal access to birth control means less unwanted children (which means less children). Having more higher educated women tends to lead to lower birth rates since a good chunk of them will choose career over having kids (who can blame them). This isn't just a European thing, the same thing is happening in east Asia. Even Turkey, Iran and Mexico have seen drastic declines in birthrates for much the same reason just in the past 15 years.
Many reasons. Cultural being one. The less religious tend to not see a reason to be married. People of birthing age tend to like to party which is the opposite lifestyle of those raising families. Economic. The more kids you have now, the more expensive it is and takes money away from other things. Urbanization as its harder to have more kids in a cramped apartment. Universal access to birth control means less unwanted children (which means less children). Having more higher educated women tends to lead to lower birth rates since a good chunk of them will choose career over having kids (who can blame them). This isn't just a European thing, the same thing is happening in east Asia. Even Turkey, Iran and Mexico have seen drastic declines in birthrates for much the same reason just in the past 15 years.
The bolded doesn't explain anything. Typically, a couple that decides to start a family at some point moves to a larger place, whether an apartment or a home. Maybe not after the first child, but if there's another, or when the first child gets old enough to need its own room, they move. So what I get from your statement is that in many European cities, there's a housing shortage, so moving to a larger place isn't an easy option, or it's too expensive...?
As far as kids being too expensive, some countries subsidize the kids; parents get some kind of tax break or even some kind of childcare payments to help support the kids. Government that can afford to do so, that is; it's in the government's interest to incentivize having kids.
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