Population Suicide

Unbelievably low birth rates have put the continent in demographic free fall.

When people think about Italy, they often imagine scores of children with their parents and relatives sitting around a table with a delicious, steaming pot of pasta.

Demographic spiral

But the reality is that few Italians have more than one child these days. Many Italian children no longer know what it is to have cousins or aunts and uncles — and this isn’t unique to Italy. For the past two generations, birth rates have been declining steadily in every European country. The birth rate is so low that demographers across the continent had to invent a new term to define it: low-low fertility.

“This is not the slow road. It’s the fast road to population suicide,” said Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute and a member of Legatus’ Northern New Jersey Chapter. “There are 15 to 16 countries in Europe which lose population every year. Antonio Golini of the University of Rome said that in 100 years, the great cathedrals in Italy will exist only as museums and the ticket sellers will be Albanian Muslims.”

Nicholas Eberstadt, a Harvard University political economist and demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, is equally perplexed. “Demographers look at two different takes — total births and the total fertility rate or births per woman. On average, Europe is far below population stability.”

More From Legatus Magazine: