Sunday, May 03, 2009
People are Still Having Sex
Something interesting (well, to me, anyway)- Europe's native-born population is no longer shrinking. The Wilson Quarterly reports: "Defying predictions of demographic decline, northern Europeans have started having more babies. Britain and France are now projecting steady population growth through the middle of the century." Populations are, however, declining across much of the developing world-including much of Asia, North Africa, and Latin America. The article points out therefore that recent hysteria about Europe hollowing out and being "Islamicized" due to immigration from North Africa- a scenario alluded to in that First Things piece I linked to recently- is... well, somewhat hysterical. But Americans seem to be breeding too. So, sex is still popular, which is good to hear.
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2 comments:
French citizens get tax breaks for ever child they have. I'm surprised you didn't know about that. Also, it's impossible to predict things like that. All such predictions are based on linear approximations based on current trends, but those trends can and have reversed at the drop of a hat. There's just no way of knowing what's going to happen fifty years out until you get there, or pretty close to it.
Yeah, I know about the tax incentives. That does tends to vary based on the region. But it also seems to me that when the population starts to shrink, that in itself provides incentive for people to make more babies just to fill up the public spaces. There's something unnerving about a place that's underpopulated.
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