The rapidly declining fertility rates in Western Europe, and other white nations such as Canada, are unquestionably going to mean the collapse of anything resembling caring, welfare states within a generation, and anything resembling fairly unified national cultures within two or three. The reason for this is that national health care schemes and old age pensions for the poor are paid for on an ongoing basis by the working population and, today, there are fewer and fewer workers per old age person from year to year.

Even America, apparently the most prosperous and progressive nation in the world, is not immune. Since the 'baby boom' of the 1950s when fertility surged briefly to 3.5 births per woman/family, the fertility rate declined to 1.8, less than the necessary replacement rate of 2 (more accurately 2.2). It is now hovering at around the replacement rate only because of the immigration of approaching one million Hispanics a year into California with their fertility rates of 3.5 births per woman. Within a generation, however, as the children of the immigrants aspire to the full gamut of status goods as the indigenous population, the Hispanic birth rate drops to the American norm.

What do anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists say about all this? First of all, they will say as a universal principle that any population that is under great stress, such as starvation, will always neglect the old and the very young to the point of death in order to reserve food and other resources for the part of the population that is of breeding age and can, if times becomes better, respond fairly quickly with a higher birth rate to replace those who have been lost. There are also those who would say that the symptoms of increased violence and homosexuality by males that are observed in other social mammals when confined in stressful conditions, is a sure sign of increasing stress in our species, too.

Developed countries are not starving, of course, but they are suffering from many other steadily increasing stresses due to the complications of ordinary daily commuting and working, steadily rising skill requirements for jobs with decent incomes, keeping up with the Jones' (as regards feeling pressured to buy a high level of consumer goods even to the extent of going deeply into debt) and the sheer logistical difficulties and costs of child care while the mother is at work -- which she has to do these days in order to live according to the normal standards around them. In England, the only country of which I can feel I have a balanced view, there is little doubt that both the fertility rate is declining precipitately (it is now 1.6, and heading towards Germany's at 1.4 and Italy's at 1.2) and also that there is massive neglect of the older citizen in dreadful nursing homes and geriatric wards in state hospitals. Usually we don't hear and read much about this neglected, and increasing, part of our population in the media, but when we do the stories are usually horrific.

Four partial solutions are proferred: The first, as recently suggested by a OECD report (see "099. The looming dilemma of the welfare state"), is that all developed countries now have increasing numbers of people who are potentially economically active but, for various reasons, decline to register as available for work and thus don't pay taxes or insurance for the upkeep of the old. These should be persuaded (or forced) into work, so some are saying. The second is that those at work should now work longer and retirement ages are now being raised all over Europe. The third is that child care facilities should be vastly improved so that mothers can be persuaded to have more than one child -- now rapidly becoming the norm. The fourth is that immigration should be vastly increased.

Each of these requires much more discussion than I am going to do in this present posting. Suffice it to say that, in my opinion, the proposed partial solutions will turn out to be so partial as not to make a great deal of difference. I believe that most thoughtful people think the same. The real problem, it seems to me, is the actual "construction" of our daily living and working lives. And this has been caused principally by the increasing cheapness of energy and transport use over the past 200 years which has contributed to the separation of living communities (if we can call them that these days) and work environments -- and also, of course, schools, doctors' surgeries and so forth.

In the following summary, one of the most intelligent and thoughtful of our politicians, David Willets, discusses one of the partial solutions -- better child-care facilities for the young working mother. It is excellently argued and I would, of course, support his case. However, it seems very unlikely that either employers or governments will be be able to do a great deal because neither party can afford it. Employers are coming under increasing competition with profit margins declining in all sectors, and developed governments are meeting increasingly fierce resistance to more taxation.

The only solution that will cure the lower birth rates will be when home and work environments become conjoined again. We will then be able to look after our old fold better and also have plenty of child care facilities available for mothers who, polling evidence suggests, would dearly like to have more than two children -- as their parents and grandparents did. This will not even start to come about for the mass of the population are forced into it when oil and gas prices start rising -- which, of course, they will start to do in the next few years. (The OPEC countries announced that they are reducing production only this morning -- which will raise prices -- and they will do this with increasing frequency and facility in the coming years.) In the meantime, I am sure that the better-off will be continuing the present trend into managed housing estates (gated communities) where an increasing amount of distance-work from home via the Internet can be done, and children raised in an environment free from the increasing violence of today's developed society.

Keith Hudson

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DECLINE IN BIRTHS BREEDS PENSION FEARS

Ed Crooks

A rallying cry has gone out to the nation's women: breed for Britain.

The argument from David Willetts, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is based on some simple arithmetic resulting from the rise in life expectancy and the declining birth rate. In 2000, there was roughly one person aged 60 years+ for every three people of working age in Britain, and by 2040 that will have risen to two over-60s for every three. Without more workers, the pension system will not be able to stand the strain.

Working longer is only a partial solution, Mr Willetts says, and immigration can cause social tension. So the only answer is to have more children, creating workers of the future to generate the incomes for tomorrow's pensioners.

A higher birth rate is only a long-term solution to the problem. Sir Tony Atkinson, warden of Nuffield College Oxford, backs increased support for families with children, but not as an answer to the pensions crisis. "The pension problem we face is in the next 10 to 15 years, and these extra births will still be doing their GCSEs," he said.

If a higher birth rate is ultimately part of the solution, or at least a way to make the problem less acute, it is hard to see how the government can encourage the public to reproduce more freely: short of some of the obvious expedients, such as cutting taxes on drink, raising taxes on contraceptives or organising regular power blackouts.

In the words of the cartoon, women concentrating on their careers find themselves saying: "I can't believe it. I forgot to have children."

The reality is more complex. Across Europe, the northern countries such as Denmark and Norway that have higher female employment and earnings than southern European countries such as Italy and Spain tend also to have significantly higher fertility rates. It seems that policies that encourage women to work can also encourage them to have children.

As part of the review of childcare that will feed into next year's spending review, officials from Downing Street and the Treasury have visited Denmark, where parents can take a year's leave and easily find childcare when they return to work.

Lisa Harker, chair of the Daycare Trust, argues that more support for working parents would help tip the balance towards having children. "Women have more choices than ever before, but find it difficult to combine those choices," she says. "So the opportunity costs of having children are greater than they have ever been."

There may be more to it than childcare, however. Christopher Prinz of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Paris-based rich countries' think-tank, says one inhibiting factor to the success of pro-natal policies in France may be that French men -- like European men in general, including the British -- are failing to pull their weight around the home. "If women have jobs and families, they have the double burden of work inside and outside the home," he says.

"Because men have not taken over the unpaid work in the household, the pressure on women is increased enormously." In other words, the best way of all to raise the birth rate may be to get men to do more housework.

Faced with that threat, even working to 70 might not seem such a bad idea after all.

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Financial Times -- 24 September 2003

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PLENTY THE GOVERNMENT COULD DO TO ENCOURAGE PARENTS TO HAVE MORE CHILDREN

Sarah Ross

[Interview with Mrs Stocker]

"If the government could tell me I'd be better off if I had another child I might consider it," says Helen Stocker, solicitor and mother of three. "But financial considerations had nothing to do with my decision to have children."

Ms Stocker, 39, says that although direct financial incentives would make no difference to her and her barrister husband John's decision not to increase the family further, she does believe there are plenty of issues the government could address that might encourage parents to have more children. "The biggest problem for working parents is childcare," Ms Stocker says. "In order for me to be able to work we have to pay for a full-time nanny." She would like to see the government providing more creches or after-school activities so that working parents do not have to pay for their children to be supervised until the end of a normal working day.

The expense of a live-in nanny -- living costs and a £12,000 salary plus tax and national insurance -- and the difficulties of finding an affordable nursery place for pre-school children mean many career-minded mothers may decide not to have larger families. "Easing the tax burden on employing a nanny would help," says Ms Stocker. "But the biggest expense is school fees."

Ms Stocker's sons, aged six and five, go to Dulwich College Preparatory School in south London, and her three-year-old daughter is at nursery two mornings a week. "We pay £20,000 a year in school and nursery fees and the bill will just get higher and higher. I'd like the government to sort out the school system so that we could send the children to a state school without feeling we're sacrificing their education." Ms Stocker adds: "Having another child would mean moving into another house -- London property prices make that an impossible option."

But she says money is not the issue when it comes to deciding how many children to have. "We always wanted three children. How much money the government would provide never came into it."

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Financial Times -- 24 September 2003