Effects of Population Implosion in Europe Term Paper

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Population Implosion in Europe

Roughly thirty years ago, a global think tank declared that population pressures would devastate the world by the mid-1990's, however, they did not foresee that women in the developed world would be producing fewer children (Specter 1998).

With life expectancy rising as the fertility rate drops, most developed countries may find themselves with lopsided societies, a large number of elderly and not enough young people working to support them (Specter 1998). Thus, every program that requires public funds, such as health care, education, pensions and military spending will be affected (Specter 1998).

Due to prosperity and freedom, millions of women are staying in school longer, putting more emphasis on work and marrying later, resulting in a rapid birth rate decline in many countries (Specter 1998). In Italy, women produce on average fewer than 1.2 children, the lowest figure every recorded among humans (Specter 1998). It is projected that Italy will lose nearly a quarter of its current population by 2050 (Elder 2003). When the Berlin Wall disappeared, it created economic uncertainties in that have frozen the birth rate from the Black Forest to Vladivostok (Specter 1998).

Never before, except in times of plague, war and deep economic depression, have birth rates fall so low, for so long" (Specter 1998).

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In fact there is not a single country in Europe where people are having enough children to replace themselves when they die (Specter 1998). In 1998, Italy became the first nation in history where there are more people over the age of sixty than there are under the age of twenty, with Germany, Greece and Spain following close behind (Specter 1998). Officials in France, like other European countries, see current world trends where populations of color, Africa, India, and Asia, are still growing, while their own is struggling to keep from shrinking (Specter 1998).

Although human life expectancy at birth more than doubled between 1900 and 2000, from thirty years to sixty-five years, the world's population only rose by a third, due to fertility patterns over the course of the 20th century, most significantly secular fertility decline: "sustained and progressive reductions in family size due to deliberate birth control practices" (Eberstadt 2001). "Secular fertility decline originated in Europe, and virtually every population in the world that can be described as of European origin today reports fertility rates below the replacement level" (Eberstadt 2001). One hundred years ago, Europe had fourteen percent of the….....

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