Population woes for Europe, but of a different kind

Population woes for Europe, but of a different kind
ASSOCIATED PRESS

JAN 16: They're calling it the "baby summit." Host Sweden hopes a March meeting of European leaders will launch an appeal to reverse Europe's declining birth rates, rejuvenate the population and banish fears that a shrinking workforce will soon be unable to pay the continent's pensions bill.

"You can find no worse threat to sustainable development than to have too few children born," Environment Minister Kjell Larsson said recently.

Yet, that's the case across the 15 nations of the European Union.

In Catholic Spain 30 years ago, three children per couple was the norm but today's Spanish women rarely have more than one. In Sweden, Germany and Italy, natives are dying faster than they reproduce. Only an influx of immigrants stops population decline.

Only in Iceland do Western European women produce an average two children or more, according to figures released this month by the EU's statistical agency.

A UN report last year said Germany would need to import 487,000 immigrants a year to keep the working-age population stable up to 2050 at current birth and death rates. France would need 109,000 and the EU as a whole 1.58 million.

To keep the ratio of workers to old-age pensioners steady, the Union would need the influx of outsiders to swell to 13.5 million a year.

The Swedish government believes the population slump is the greatest social problem facing Europe. Its plan to reverse the decline is simple - create a "family friendly" society to make it easier for today's dual-breadwinner couples to have more babies without sacrificing their careers. The Swedes will be making the point when they host their first ever EU summit in Stockholm March 23-24.

"We need to have a baby-friendly society," said Anna Ekstroem, state secretary for employment, who has a lead role in preparing the Stockholm meeting. "The summit could result in measures being taken to make it easier to have a working life and a family life."

Those measures could include persuading other EU nations to follow Sweden's line in introducing generous support for families, including child support payments, lengthy paid leave for new mothers and fathers and an extensive network of childcare and other measures to allow both parents to continue their careers.

"We need a good family policy that makes it possible for men and women to work and still feel safe about the children," said Larsson, the environment minister.

Despite the implications for national budgets in countries without Sweden's high tax burden, the ideas seem to be winning converts.

The last EU summit in December in Nice, France, stressed the need for the Stockholm meeting to look for "appropriate policies on the family and children" and to "reinforce the relationship between working life and family life."

Sweden is already taking a lead, with the government planning to phase in a series of improvements to a support programme already among the world's most generous. New measures include increasing paid parental leave from 12 to 13 months, of which fathers must take two months; increasing monthly child benefit payments beyond the current 950 kroner ($102) per child; and introducing free pre-school for four and five-year-olds by 2003.

Swedish officials say paying to promote a baby boom has been shown to work.

When benefits were raised in the late 1980s, the birth rate soared to 14.5 per 1,000 citizens - second only to Ireland among the EU nations. When a recession forced cuts in the early 1990s the babies stopped coming and Sweden finished the decade with just 10 births per 1,000 people - almost bottom of the EU birth table.

Sweden has an advantage over other EU nations: Its people have shown they are prepared to tolerate some of the world's highest tax rates in return for cradle-to-grave welfare.

It is estimated that Swedes, numbering about nine million, pay around 60 per cent of their income on taxes. Increasingly that's the sort of price other nations may have to consider paying to keep the population going, experts say.