Solving Europe’s Population Crisis
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For Helena Frith Powell, having a third child was a luxury she could afford only by moving to France.
She and her husband left their native Sussex, in England, to live in a converted farmhouse in the Languedoc region, in south west France.
Her bigger-than-average family is favoured by the French government.
On top of the usual generous maternity and paternity benefits, mothers of third children are free to take a year off work, largely at the authorities’ expense.
Since 2005, 750 euros ($1,160; £589) a month have been on offer, regardless of how much the mother was earning before.
Plus, there are perks: subsidised first class rail travel, holiday vouchers and money towards childcare at home if you do not want to make use of the free state creche facilities.
“My eldest daughter, Olivia, was at a nursery that cost us something horrendous like £60 (76 euros; $118) a day in England and I was fined heavily if I was at all late. Often, my train was delayed getting back from London,” Helena explains.
“In Britain,” she says, “there are barriers to having children and having a nice life with them whereas, in France, the whole of society seems to be geared up to supporting big families, children and you having children”.
The French public are accustomed to such providence from the state, even if they are learning not to take it as much for granted as they used to.
En famille
In the town hall in nearby Beziers, officials point proudly to figures showing steadily rising birth-rates in the region.
At a heavy cost to the economy, France is bucking the European trend, with the continent’s highest fertility rate of just over two children, on average, per woman of child-bearing age.
In the square outside, a couple of fathers told me that they whole-heartedly believed families were worth supporting.
“Maybe it is a hangover from days after the war when we were told to build up the population,” said one man, “but any help from the state has to be a good thing”.
A short train ride over the border into Spain, the situation for families is very different.
Lola Valarde, President of the Institute for Family Policies, says Spain is Europe’s meanest country in terms of subsidies for parents.
“Perhaps it is because families have always been taken for granted in Spain but the situation here is bad,” she says.
In order to qualify for the same benefits as you would get for three children in France, you have to have 16 in Spain.
The government spends just 0.7% of its gross domestic product on family subsidies coming, once more, bottom of the league.
Perhaps it is not surprising that Spain has one of the lowest birth-rates, not just in Europe, but globally.
Lola Valarde says widespread child poverty, family break-ups and accompanying social problems are spreading rapidly.
A hole in the work-force of the future is, however, not likely to come about in Spain, because an economic fix is already in place.
The country’s population stayed constant at around 39 million for decades.
But in the past nine years or so, it has been boosted to about 45 million. The explanation is immigration.
In 2005, the socialist government in Spain introduced an amnesty for illegal immigrants who could prove they had been working in the country for at least two years.
Some 700,000 migrants were made legal overnight and, at the same time, had to start paying taxes.
The result of this and other immigration-friendly policies has been to help create one of the continent’s most dynamic economies.
Proud
But despite criticism from other European governments, worried about an influx of newly-legalised immigrants from Spain, and from the conservative opposition, concerned about finite resources and a threat to indigenous Spanish culture, the government says it is proud of its approach to immigration.
But Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar is a former justice minister on the executive committee of the governing socialist party.
“We are well aware of the risks of things going wrong if there is a significant down-turn in the economy”, he says.
“When trouble comes, people are ready to react against migrants and put the blame on them for a lack of resources on the part of the authorities.
“I would not dare to deliver a sermon to other European countries, but of course our government is ready to share our experience and our points of view. We in Europe are to face migrations on an unprecedented scale.”
You might think that Spain’s workforce would feel threatened by the recent influx.
Javier Urbina, head of the international office of the Metal, Construction and Woodworkers Union, told me his members welcomed foreign blood.
“We consider the immigration of workers in our society absolutely a positive thing.
“They are not only workers, they are citizens. It is positive for our social security system, positive for our labour market and positive for our living standards.”
(Posted on May 1, 2008)
Comments
*“When trouble comes, people are ready to react against migrants and put the blame on them for a lack of resources on the part of the authorities.”*
But that *is* true, isn’t it?
Employment, housing etc are all “finite resources”, are they not?
But that was always the problem with “birth subsidies” - the system so lax that, in most Western countries, Somalians, North Africans etc can apply.
Posted by Obscuratus at 5:54 PM on May 1
France pays even its immigrants to have babies.
Like if the U.S. didn’t.
Posted by A Reader at 6:50 PM on May 1
Pay the immigrants to have babies??? No! Pay your native WHITES to have babies. Why pay for your own destruction?
Posted by at 7:05 PM on May 1
Are the Spanish stupid, did they not see what happened in Paris? Do Madrid and Barcelona have the same fate?
Posted by Brick at 7:32 PM on May 1
Why doesnt France allow unlimited immigration of white South Africans into their country?If they did, they would make the best newcomers that they could possibly get.
Posted by Peejay in Frisco at 8:41 PM on May 1
Let the white women-bashing begin, because this site just can’t go two weeks without one of these stories. To all the posters here, please pick up a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, read it, then kindly shut up about creating a breeding program for white people.
Posted by Jacqui in AZ at 9:02 PM on May 1
Mark my words. In the not so distant future the West will rue the day it pushed so hard to import warm bodies.
The entire world is reaching a population level that is beginning to reveal the first severe effects of too many people.
Having smaller self-sustaining populations is the only way the global community will avoid large scale starvation and bloodshed that this current increasing population is just now beginning to endure.
Growth, economic or otherwise, cannot continue much longer without very severe repercussions.
Posted by Robert Kelly at 9:29 PM on May 1
All cultures have breeding programs-if only by default.
Not to choose is to choose. Our breeding program favors the stu-
pid and shiftless over the capable and Non-Whites over Whites.
Once that is understood, the neccesity of a “White breeding pro-
ram is evident. And that will just keep us treading water. If
we want to improve we would have to decrease the first two. This
dual approach is known as negative and positive eugenics. Only
when implemented together can one achieve optimal results.
Posted by Freyr at 10:22 PM on May 1
Are the Spanish stupid, did they not see what happened in Paris? Do Madrid and Barcelona have the same fate?
Posted by Brick
……………….
They already have it — maybe just not so bad (yet).
As I posted elsewhere, I just spent several weeks in Milan. It is getting to look just like another Paris (and I don’t refer to the beauty or culture of the city). Milan is being inundated with Third World “immigrants” — probably mostly illegal. But even the “legal” ones, considered to be “European citizens”, are not necessarlily Europeans.
The streets of Milan are full of West Indian prostitutes down from London, pitching everyone in English. I suppose their papers say “British”, so even that doesn’t mean a thing nowadays. And I suppose the Pakistanis operating their hallal fried chicken places (all signs in English) probably have British passports too. Today, even the blackest Africans can say they’re British. Or French.
Northern Italy is one of the most densely populated pieces of real estate on the face of the planet. The crowds! The congestion! The pushing and shoving! The competition for space! To be importing more humanity into a place like this is sheer madness. What they need is to thin out the popuation a bit to give everyone some breathing room, and that would be a blessing for all concerned.
Posted by ghw at 10:51 PM on May 1
But that was always the problem with “birth subsidies” - the system so lax that, in most Western countries, Somalians, North Africans etc can apply.
That’s why any subsidies we create for people to have larger families here in the US need to be targeted at the middle class. They need to be based on either larger income tax deducation or else non-refundable tax credits, so that the minorities who already aren’t paying any income axes don’t get even more money back.
Mark my words. In the not so distant future the West will rue the day it pushed so hard to import warm bodies.
Nonsense. We won’t be able to rue that day. Because no matter how bad things get; no matter how much aof a police state we have to become; no matter how far the US falls behind the rest of the world on almost every measure of quality of life; no matter all that, we’ll still be required to say “Well, gee, without all these immigrants this wouldn’t be such a great country.”
Sure, you’d think one day “we” will say that late 20th Century/early 21st Century was a mistake, but who will say it? Politicians, out begging for votes from the children of those very immigrants? Will teachers be able to talk about how great this nation was until we let your ancestors in?
Don’t count on it. No matter how bad it gets, we’ll never be allowed to say it. We’ll never be allowed to acknowledge the cause.
Posted by Alan at 12:54 AM on May 2
There is no population crisis, only a threat to ever expanding corporate profits and the justification for a bloated government by way of a massive welfare state.
If Europe could survive loosing almost half her people during the Black Death, then she can certainly endure a population drop in the 21st Century.
Posted by Will McHenry at 2:58 AM on May 2
The obvious problem with the French system is that they subsidize large immigrant families as well as French families. While the idea of subsidizing white French families is a good one, that of subsidizing immigrant reproduction is insane. Have the French not had enough riots on their television screens in the past years? Do they not recognize a foreign invasion when it is in front of their eyes? One would think that the Spanish with their history of resisting Moslem inroads and their policy of reconquest from the Muslims of spain would at least have some historical sense—-but this obviously does not apply to the Spanish Left.
The only viable solution for Europe is to adjust to smaller populations of europeans who are self sufficient—-this is the only way that they will be able to maintain their identity and culture.
Posted by at 9:35 AM on May 2
My wife and I want more children, but we just can’t afford them right now. Tres ironique, non?
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 5:36 PM on May 2
That’s just fantastic.
Having used the white Eastern Europeans as fodder and scapegoat in their immigration debate, the ineveitable conclusion is reached- they know they aren’t wanted, and they go home.
Meanwhile, the place bursts at the gills with assorted Africans, Muslims, et al.
I think they’re getting what they wanted. Unfortunately, I doubt it’s what the natives want, but government reigns supreme and has infinite power, don’t they?
Posted by at 10:42 PM on May 2
“Nonsense. We won’t be able to rue that day. Because no matter how bad things get; no matter how much aof a police state we have to become; no matter how far the US falls behind the rest of the world on almost every measure of quality of life; no matter all that, we’ll still be required to say “Well, gee, without all these immigrants this wouldn’t be such a great country.””
They can’t have a massive police state without a tax base to fund it. 45% of the population will be black or brown in 40 years with an overwhelming majority of children minorities. Children that mostly will grow up without the skills necessary to work in high paying jobs. Affirmative action can only go so far. Competitiveness requires results, not quotas. Something has to give at some point.
Posted by at 10:52 PM on May 2
“The problem with the French system is that they subsidize large immigrant families as well as French families. While the idea of subsidizing white French families is a good one, that of subsidizing immigrant reproduction is insane.
Have the French not had enough riots on their television screens in the past years? Do they not recognize a foreign invasion when it is in front of their eyes?” — posted by 9:35AM
Since the French, by law, are not allowed to acknowledge or recognize such a thing as race — either in programs or even in statistics — there is no way such a program could be implemented … short of completely re-skewing the official mentality and the laws. This would require an enormous effort and much social disruption — (but it could be done; it HAS to be done, if France is to be saved).
Posted by ghw at 11:00 PM on May 2
“There is no way such a program could be implemented … short of completely re-skewing the official mentality and the laws. This would require an enormous effort and much social disruption “
And THAT would take a revolution.
Posted by at 3:49 PM on May 3
Now if we could just roll back the clock and make France white again…
Posted by at 4:36 PM on May 3
The proverbial handwriting is pretty much on the wall for France. Paying people to have kids is NOT the government’s job in the first place, but paying non-assimilated foreigners to do so in your own country is ludicrous!
Posted by Dark-Star at 5:48 PM on May 5
“Paying people to have kids is NOT the government’s job in the first place, but paying non-assimilated foreigners to do so in your own country is ludicrous! “
In fact, its INSANE and it’s SUICIDAL.
However, European countries have historically encouraged large families, even though they may not have paid them directly (until the present republican/democratic governments came into existence). Large families were needed for Europe’s many wars and colonial adventures which severly drained the home population in countries such as Portugal.
Spain had the interesting institution of the “Hidalgo de la Bragueta” (literally “Lord of the Fly”) — a title of nobility conferred on a man who had fathered seven sons in succession. I’m not enough of a mathematician to speculate what the probabilities were, but they must have been extremely slim. Nonetheless, many men doubtless tried for the golden ring, and it cost the state absolutely nothing. (Perhaps some concept like that could be instituted again.)
Posted by ghw at 5:22 PM on May 10