Europe needs more babies

Fire of Liberty

Well it seems that the folks in Europe are so busy enjoying life and not taking enough time to settle down and establish a family and having kids are starting to experience a population dearth throughout the continent. According to this article by David R. Sands in today's Washington Times, the citizens of these countries have stopped having enough kids to make the critical "normal replacement" rate of 2.1 kids per family thus creating a situation that will put a major dent in their economy, retirement system and general cultural makeup of their country in the near decades. It's rather interesting that after all those years of hearing Malthusian theories of "overcrowding" like in Paul R. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb, that predicted that so many people would be born that they would eventually outstrip our food supplies and createing a apocalyptic world like that of Mad Max and the Thunderdome, that the world today is facing the polar opposite. I guess that maybe the folks in Europe need to rethink this "anti-children" policy and get busy making some kids before the countries that they have become accustomed to living in cease to exist in the near future. (One more reason why I'm thankful that I live in the US, where we're still churning out youngins.)

If you want to have a better understanding of how much of an impact that a decline in replacement rates will have on Europe and the world in general, just check out the following books and articles:

Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future by Ben J. Wattenberg

The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It by Philip Longman

Articles:

The Emptying of Russia by Nicholas Eberstadt

The Population Implosion by Nicholas Eberstadt

Missing Girls Bode Ill for China in Future Decades by Nicholas Eberstadt

Russia, the Sick Man of Europe by Nicholas Eberstadt

Old Age Tsunami by Nicholas Eberstadt