In the long term, demographics are a factor of extreme importance.
Sure, “in the long run we are all dead,” as Keynes said. But in the meantime, significant changes are expected.
In France, the year 2016 saw a 2% decrease compared to 2015, which itself was down 2.7% from 2014; the trend intensified in December 2016: 3.8% fewer births than in December 2015.
It seems, therefore, that the decline in birthrates that began in 2015 is set to continue in 2017: Metropolitan France might fall this year below 730,000 births.
For the European Union, we do not have figures for 2016, but those from 2015 are alarming: 5.09 million births for 5.2 million deaths. The birth deficit peaks in Bulgaria (70,000 babies versus 110,000 coffins), but it is significant in several countries: Germany, where nearly 200,000 births are missing to balance the deaths; Italy, with a deficit of 160,000; Greece, Romania, Portugal, Hungary, Croatia are largely “in the red.”
A deficit more severe than that of public budgets, and it combines with it: for can we imagine Italy, for example, reduced in a few decades to 55 million inhabitants, many of whom are elderly, repaying a debt accumulated by 60 million inhabitants with a much higher proportion of working-age adults?
Can the dwindling number of European babies be offset by immigration?
On a purely economic level, yes, to some extent, if the newcomers have the willingness to work and if the training of those who arrive without truly useful professional skills is well organized.
On a cultural level, it’s a different story: the European colonists greatly influenced the lifestyles of the countries into which they settled; will the Asian, African, and South American colonists who will settle in Europe do the same?
