For at least
3 decades, the European Union
has been facing two negative
trends regarding its population’s
evolution. First, there is a general
decline of birth rate all over
Europe; second, there was a ‘benign
neglect’ from most of EU
governments and institutions regarding
this question. At least for
the second trend, it seems that
a reversal
is on its way; which may lead to
a drastic change of the first one. Indeed in past weeks, two major
governments which used to feel
estrange to the problem though
it was crucially affecting their
countries, Germany and UK[1], have
started to react. Of course, as ‘natalist
policies’ still suffer from
the negative image of early 20th
century, the new policies are based
upon the concept of ‘child-friendly’ societies.
But the major element there is
nevertheless that those governments,
both from the Social Democratic
family, are moving into the direction
of trying to have their societies
making more babies.
Three key
elements can explain what is
a new trend affecting European
government’s involvement
regarding family policies.
First, there
is the general recognition that
immigration cannot be the
long term only solution for keeping
a balance between the generations
in Europe. It used to be an ‘obvious’ answer
to this question, especially on
the left and liberal sides of European
political spectrum, till very recent
years. But the increasing evidence
that EU populations will not accept
such a solution and will therefore
turn massively to xenophobic and
rightist extremist movements to
oppose it has been making its ways
into politicians ‘brains.
Second, the
successful experiences of France
and Sweden for instance,
to keep a fertility rate around
the generation renewal level, proved
that something effective could
be done in that matter, without
obliging women to go back to the
KKK (Kinder-Kuche, Kirche as is
said in Germany) era. These two
countries have indeed a much higher
employment rate of women than for
instance Germany where birth rate
is now down to very worrying levels
(less than 1 per 1.000 inhabitants).
Third, the
progressive fading away of the ‘baby boomers
hedonist’ vision of the world
which de facto entirely disconnected
the individual from any social
responsibilities, such as for instance,
having babies in order at least
to maintain a sustainable collective
demographic momentum. The ‘me-first’ generation
is indeed slowly moving out of
office and with it goes away its
refusal to see anything like ‘natalist
policies’ coming back.
Though,
let’s be clear,
the European ‘natalist policies’ of
early 21st century have nothing
to do with those of early 20th
century. They are very much focusing
on the child itself. They try to
allow women to have both a rewarding
professional life and a good family
life. They want to get the men
involved in the process. And they
do not aim at surpassing any other
neighbouring country in terms of
population. Those policies for
instance do not promote the ‘multiple
children model’, but rather
try to at least ensure that there
is one child or two by family[2].
They just try to find the pace
and the path for preventing their
population from dwindling, and/or
become the victim of xenophobic
trends.
To support
this trend and to extend it to
countries like Italy and
Spain for instance, which are facing
a complete collapse of their birth
rates, it would be more than needed
to have a joint EU effort. Developed
on the basis of the ‘Open
Method of Coordination’ with
an incentive role coming from the
Commission and the Parliament,
a programme such as ‘Towards
a Child-Friendly European Union’ could
be the perfect instrument to serve
such a purpose. Let’s see
if this year, the EU system will
be able to ‘give birth’ to
such an urgent initiative.
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[1] For UK, see
For Germany, see
[2] Population studies show that
the main cause of birth rate decline
in the EU comes from the fact that
too many couples do not have a
single child. By reducing the number
of childless couples, the increase
in birth rate would be very significant
and allow the level of natural
renewal of generations to be reached.
