From: THE POPULATION IMPLOSION – NY Times Page One Special Report, 7/10/98.
"Driven largely by prosperity and freedom, millions of women throughout the developed world are having fewer children than ever before. They stay in school longer, put more emphasis on work and marry later. As a result, birth rates are now in a rapid, sustained decline.
What was once regarded universally as a cherished goal – incredibly low birth rates – has suddenly become a cause for alarm. With life expectancy rising at the same time that fertility drops, most developed countries may soon find themselves with lopsided societies that will be nearly impossible to sustain: a large number of elderly and not enough young people working to support them … There is no longer a single country in Europe where people are having enough children to replace themselves when they die. Italy recently became the first nation in history where there are more people over the age of 60 than there are under the age of 20. This year Germany, Greece and Spain will probably all cross the same eerie divide … The effects of the shift will resonate far beyond Europe. Last year Japan’s fertility rate – the number of children born to the average woman in a lifetime – fell to 1.39, the lowest level it has ever reached. In the United States, where a large pool of new immigrants helps keep the birth rate higher than in any other prosperous country, the figure is still slightly below an average of 2.1 children per woman – the magic number needed to keep the population from starting to shrink.
Even in the developing world, the pace of growth has slowed almost everywhere. Since 1965, according to United Nations population data, the birth rate in the Third World has been cut in half – from 6 children per woman to 3. In the last decade alone, for example, the figure in Bangladesh has fallen from 6.2 children per woman to 3.4. That’s a bigger drop than in the previous two centuries … “What is happening now has simply never happened before in the history of the world,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer based at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “This is terra incognita. If these trends continue, in a generation or two there may be countries where most people’s only blood relatives will be their parents.” … There used to be many more young people than old people in the world. Right now there are roughly equal numbers. But by 2050 there will be nearly twice as many old people as young people … If there is a ground zero in the epidemic of low fertility it would have to be in the northern Italian city of Bologna, where women give birth to an average of fewer than one child (in 1997, the number was 0.8).
The city has more highly educated women than any other in the country. Incomes average more than $16,500 a year. Produce is rich and cheap, food is wonderful and living is generally easy. The local population has dropped steadily for two decades, but 1,500 people turn 75 every year… In 20 years, at present birth rates, for every child under the age of 5 in Bologna there will be 25 people over the age of 50 – and 10 older than 80… How did Italy, a largely Roman Catholic country that has always been seen as the stereotypical land of big, close-knit families, became the place with the world’s lowest level of fertility? “Prosperity has strangled us,” said Dr. Pierpaolo Donati, professor of sociology at the University of Bologna…"
