The Economist of the U.K. has a fairly lengthy article raising alarm about the increasing demographic contrast between Europe and America, and tracing some of the long term (up to 50 years) consequences, should current trends continue. Europe's birth rates, with one or two exceptions, have plummeted to well below replacement levels, while America's have rebounded to replacement level, after a steep decline in the 1980s.

Part of the phenomenon has to do with native born women postponing birth, depressing the 80's rate, and raising the 90's rate, and part has to do with the fertility of immigrants, especially Hispanics.

In the long run, The Economist sees America's economic and military dominance of Europe expanding, while sentimental and ethnic ties will recede. This should be alarming to Europeans, in the opinion of the Economist, probably correctly but futilely. The article never mentions the words 'Arab' or 'Muslim,' strangely enough, in discussing European birth rates.

Here are a few of the highlights:

For 50 years, America and the nations of Western Europe have been lumped together as rich countries, sharing the same basic demographic features: stable populations, low and declining fertility, increasing numbers of old people. For much of that period, this was true. But in the 1980s, the two sides began to diverge. The effect was muted at first, because demographic change is slow. But it is also remorseless, and is now beginning to show up.

By 2040, and possibly earlier, America will overtake Europe in population and will come to look remarkably (and, in many ways, worryingly) different from the Old World.

In 1950, Western Europe was exactly twice as populous as the United States: 304m against 152m.

In the 1980s, however, something curious began to happen. American fertility rates—the average number of children a woman can expect to bear in her lifetime—suddenly began to reverse their decline. Between 1960 and 1985, the American fertility rate had fallen faster than Europe's, to 1.8, slightly below European levels and far below the 'replacement level' of 2.1 (the rate required to keep the population steady). By the 1990s American fertility had rebounded, rising back to just below the 2.1 mark.
Nobody quite knows why. Some of the recovery was the result of higher—than—average fertility among immigrants. But not all of it: fertility rose among native—born whites and blacks as well. Perhaps the most plausible, if unprovable, explanation is that higher fertility was the product of the economic boom of the 1990s combined with what one might call 'social confidence': America was a good country to bring more children into.

What seems to have happened then was not that Americans were having fewer children overall, but that a generation of women was postponing motherhood. That depressed America's birth rate in 1970—85, shifted a surge of births by half a generation, and produced an unusually high rate in the 1990s. That same population shift is happening in parts of Europe now, especially in those Mediterranean countries with the lowest fertility rates. There too, many women are merely postponing child—bearing. Later, after about 2010, when they have their children, Europe's fertility rate will nudge back up

But what is striking about the American rate is not that it rose and fell, but that it rose so much—to within a whisker of the replacement level. And what is striking about the European rate is that it fell so far, to a much lower level than America's. That is also a reason for thinking it may not recover as strongly as America's did.

At the moment, America's political connections and shared values with Europe are still strong, albeit fraying. But over time, America's ties of family and culture will multiply and strengthen with the main sources of its immigration—Latin America chiefly, but also East and South Asia. As this happens, it is probable that it will also pull American attention further away from Europe.

Higher fertility rates and immigration produce not only a larger population but a society that is younger, more mixed ethnically and, on balance, more dynamic. The simplest expression of this is median age (by definition, half of the population is older than the median age, and half younger). According to Bill Frey, a demographer at the University of Michigan, the median age in America in 2050 will be 36.2. In Europe it will be 52.7. That is a stunning difference, accounted for almost entirely by the dramatic ageing of the European population. At the moment, the median age is 35.5 in America and 37.7 in Europe. In other words, the difference in the median age is likely to rise from two to 17 years by 2050.

Hat tip to Ed Lasky
Posted by Thomas  06 17 04