Politicians in Lestijärvi thought that they had an answer to Finland's demographic problems: every mother of a newborn child will receive 1000 euros annually for 10 years if they reside in the second best municipality in the northern country.
But after more than a decade has passed the payments, and more than 400,000 euros updated, officials forced to waive the defeat: the population of Listijärvi has decreased by fifth since the start of the plan.
“It wasn't worth doing it at all,” said Niko Ayeo, the former head of the city. “The child's boom lasted for only one year.”
Politics makers all over the world are struggling with the same problems that in Lestijärvi: No matter what they seem to present in the way of incentives, people do not have more children. As for the Finnish municipality, it failed even to seduce people from another place: “People did not prevent him from getting away, and did not attract new families,” Aihio said.
China provided free fertility treatments, major tax exemptions, criticism, and Singapore grants to parents and grandparents. A Danish travel company has made an advertising campaign “to do so for Denmark.” In Japan, the state funds the reconciliation of artificial intelligence, while the Urban government of Tokyo an offer A four -day working week for employees in an attempt to encourage people to become parents.
Governments are still searching for politics options to counter the economic crisis waving on the horizon with the expansion of the largest population and the shrinking group of workers. It is a transformation called the Robert Shoman Foundation “to the back written by Robert Shoman.”Demographic suicide“.
The reasons for the trend were very discussed, while some potential solutions, such as migration and pushing people to retire later, have proven that they are very unpalatable.
“The issue of population aging is multiple challenges for Europe,” said Oli Rin, the governor of the Finnish Central Bank. First, the complicated dependency rate is to pressure public financial affairs. Second, the aging community tends to be less dynamic and less organized. “
The decrease in birth rates represents a special global problem – no continent has left safely due to the direction. Two -thirds of the world's population now live in countries where people have children at a very low rate to replace their residents.
More and more countries join the list. By 2100, it is expected that only 12 countries – 11 in Africa and Vanuao on the Small Pacific Island – are expected to have a decisive level of 2.1 births for each woman. One country is not expected to have a higher than 2.3 by the end of the century.
Politics makers may be seduced by focusing on more instant crises. But the decrease in fertility rates threatens to lead to a feeling of deep economic distress. Less than children and older residents lead to a decrease in a percentage of people of working age, and increase tax revenues at the same time as the costs associated with aging communities, such as state pensions and health care, are increasing.
Without adequate political procedures, analysts at the S& GLobal rating in 2023 estimate that the financial deficit will be able to balloon by 2060 of a global average now with 2.4 percent of GDP to 9.1 percent. The net global government debt to the level of GDP will range approximately three times.
At the same time, a McKinsey report In January, many of the richest economies of the world, such as the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan, have proposed to at least dual production growth to maintain historical improvements in living standards amid sharp declines in birth rates.
Parts of Asia, especially China and Latin America are particularly exposed. In 1995, 10 East Asian workers supported a person of old age; By 2085, it is expected to be one to one.
Child gap
This is the first article in a series on the global demographic crisis that waves on the horizon, where the levels of the population are reduced
Part 1: Politicians want more children, but their policies limit
Part 2: Kenya – a window in the demographic future of Africa
Part 3: The country that the migration left behind
Part 4: South Korea, where birth rates have reached “extinction” levels
Politicians are concerned that they may be unable to act, as social pressure on women is subject to a deep change. Sarah Harper, a professor of aging science and director of the Oxford Institute for Shukha Population, said that young women surveys all over the world, from Europe to Southeast Asia, suggested a social commitment to women-and assuming the assumption on their part that if they can, it is possible that they have them Children – no longer exist.
Professions and increased gender equality are part of it. “We have a full group of women in high -income countries, but also in Southeast Asia, especially East Asia. Harper said:“ Those who have been educated in a neutral in the sexes. ”“ They enter the workplace in a neutral in the sexes, then they become Parents and suddenly, regardless of how difficult one is trying to try, they are not neutral between the sexes. ”
Policy is also likely to have a little effect as the standards about the number of children are inherent. Harper noted that in China, despite the end of the one -child policy in 2016, women generally still have only one child.
“Once you get to the community of one child, why do you want to have two children? Because everyone has one child. Everyone is ready to have one child. Harper said:” The institutions are designed to have one child. ”
Heidi Kolaran, an academic at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said that despite contracts of research and thousands of people working in demographic trends, there was no little consensus on the reason for low fertility rates, said Heidi Kolaran, an academic at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.
“There are many general threads that must be withdrawn: the rise of the nuclear family, the changes in the age of marriage, the rate in which people live together, and the age in which people begin to have their first child greater and greater.” He said. There are a lot of these features on the individual level. . . All of them are true. . . (But) the same constellation is the prophet, they will be linked to each other in a different way in different places. “
However, although personal choice played a role in the global decline in childbearing, studies indicate that people often have children less than they want – which indicates that there may still be a role for public policies in changing this .
Burns such as the cost of caring for children and housing, financial instability, continuous gender inequality, unusual working conditions, and a lack of job security are among the factors that prevent people from having more children.
The best policies may not be able to fill the gap completely, but they can help. Rin said: “The supportive family policies – such as access to children that are accessible, financial incentives, and cultural acceptance of working parents – can significantly affect demographic trends,” Rin said.
Experts agree. “The traditional policy of the paper that collects funds in the problem works to some extent,” said Lyman Stone, a demography at the Family Studies Institute, which specializes in fertility.
Stone said that studies have shown that fertility rates in South Korea may be less than they are now without programs to reward children, expand the care of the state -funded children, and subsidized fertility and housing assistance.
At the same time, Finland remains one of the most rushing societies in the world thanks to a big boom in the world after World War II. It does not seem that the care of the cheap children, nor the “children's money” paid by dozens of municipalities, has a significant impact on the country's birth rate, which is still among the lowest level of Europe.
Aihio said that good local services – such as libraries, swimming pools and decent child care – seem more important than money in encouraging women to have children. Rin admitted that policies may take “a long time” to show any payment.
Some governments also criticized how to target measures to encourage people to become fathers. in Italy, for example – The fertility rate is at 1.2 modest – only of two different sexes, women married to fertilization in the laboratory, even in particular. Single women and those in homosexual partnerships reject access.
“The huge headache of policy makers,” said Paula Sheparbard, the Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University.
Women who have low levels of education are late to have children due to concerns about the stability of their relationships and the need to live near their parents. In contrast, those who have university education are concerned about dropping the career ladder and want a practical partner.
Others are arguing studying the challenge of subordination rates in old age that there is no need to focus politics mainly on births.
Edward Pais, a demographic composition expert that focuses on Africa, said there is a clear answer to the Dimographic West problems: immigration. “Europe cannot close itself anyway. There are huge opportunities for Western countries to rethink how to deal with African countries.
Foreigners' flow has increased slowly, but steadily from Finland's population in recent years. But while Rin admitted that the migration related to work and education was “an essential part of the solution”, he added: “Of course, in the era of populism, this is a difficult political message.”
Governments also want people to work longer. Harper, a professor of aging, said it is important for societies to admit that retirement is a workforce and then expected to live in social support for decades after that, it was “not sustainable”.
Like migration, raising the retirement age can come at a high -slope political cost.
In France in 2023, Take people to the streets In protest, President Emmanuel Macron was shocked by legislation to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 only. Many Chinese were angrily interacting with legislation to raise the ages of legal retirement, which is one of the lowest levels in the world.
“You can either increase immigration rates or retirement age, or encourage people to have more children,” said Edward Davis, director of politics at the UK Social Justice Center. “I think the three are, of course, people want to have families, while in reality they tell them that they have to retire later or have to have a mass migration – that may be less popular.”
Participated in additional reports by David Belling in London
