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03/01/2008: "Europeans not reproducing enough"

Europe is a dying continent. I say this not as a criticism, but rather as a statement of fact. In Europe, an acute failure to produce the next generation has created a looming demographic crisis.

According to research by both the CIA and the U.N., every single member of the European Union has a birthrate significantly below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman. In the CIA World Factbook, Germany had a birthrate of 1.36 children per woman in 2007, and Spain and Italy had birthrates of 1.29. At such low levels of fertility, within 100 years, those three nations would have populations 80 percent lower than they are today. {snip}

Even if one ignores the statistical noise presented by the inclusion of millions of outliers, Europe faces a serious problem. Without a major shift in the current fertility trends, industrialized Europe will see its native population decline by about three-fourths over the 21st century. No civilization has ever recovered from such a population decline, and never before has such a decline been entirely voluntary.

Europeans are not becoming less fertile as a consequence of war, or famine, or disease, but rather as a consequence of their Western, consumerist lifestyles.

[ We probably do not need our full populations in numbers; what we need is for enough good people to breed to outnumber the criminals, parasites, middle managers, morons, whores, SUV-driving obliviots, etc. ]

http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23784