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Considering Europe is a labor based economy, an increasing population is of the utmost importance. The manual crop picking and sheep castrating needs able hands, and many of them.
It is not like technology is going to replace jobs any time soon. /s
How many people do you think these countries should have?
As far as Spain goes, birth rate plummeted when:
1. Women had access to contraception pills and abortion.
2. Women gained the status of being full age subjects, until 1977 women were considered minors as in Saudi Arabia.
3. Religion practically disappeared.
4. Massive migration to cities, away from peer pressure and traditions.
5. The disappearance of the "extensive family" that helped to take care of children.
But the most fundamental change was in society, as having children was totally cumpulsory to a married woman...if not, she was accused of being "rarita", a deviant, lesbian, etc.
So low birth rate is synonimous of advance, no more "Familia Numerosa" programs, a Francoist program to award and subsidize families with five and more children.
^^^^^ You forgot education and employment.
Nowadays married women work, because they have education and because they need to help providing for the family.
Many reasons. Cultural being one. The less religious tend to not see a reason to be married. People of birthing age tend to like to party which is the opposite lifestyle of those raising families. Economic. The more kids you have now, the more expensive it is and takes money away from other things. Urbanization as its harder to have more kids in a cramped apartment. Universal access to birth control means less unwanted children (which means less children). Having more higher educated women tends to lead to lower birth rates since a good chunk of them will choose career over having kids (who can blame them). This isn't just a European thing, the same thing is happening in east Asia. Even Turkey, Iran and Mexico have seen drastic declines in birthrates for much the same reason just in the past 15 years.
For some of those countries you mentioned a declining birth rate is a good thing,
Turkey and Iran for example have almost 80 million ......both countries had only half that 50 years ago.
Mexico, same thing...they have over 110 million and 50 years ago about half that.
Japan and Germany, decline is more of a problem
Japan predicted to decline from current 127 million to about 95 million by 2050.
Meanwhile African countries population growth is skyrocketing....like Nigeria...
it could have as much as 250 million by 2050.
For some of those countries you mentioned a declining birth rate is a good thing,
Turkey and Iran for example have almost 80 million ......both countries had only half that 50 years ago.
Mexico, same thing...they have over 110 million and 50 years ago about half that.
Japan and Germany, decline is more of a problem
Japan predicted to decline from current 127 million to about 95 million by 2050.
Meanwhile African countries population growth is skyrocketing....like Nigeria...
it could have as much as 250 million by 2050.
As resources get tight and as they have increasing urbanization eventually they will have population declines and then stability as well.
We Europeans live in a high density continent , so we are conscious of the problems overpopulation induce. As we don't have the religious / tribal incentives to have many children other civilizations have, and as we enjoy generally a higher standard of education, we stick to an average 2 children per women (or less in certain cases), which is commendable in my opinion if we want to preserve the future of our planet, all the more because we don't need a lot of workforce anymore, since in our developed societies in the future , robots will overtake a lot of tasks.
We Europeans live in a high density continent , so we are conscious of the problems overpopulation induce. As we don't have the religious / tribal incentives to have many children other civilizations have, and as we enjoy generally a higher standard of education, we stick to an average 2 children per women (or less in certain cases), which is commendable in my opinion if we want to preserve the future of our planet, all the more because we don't need a lot of workforce anymore, since in our developed societies in the future , robots will overtake a lot of tasks.
Which “civilizations” have religious incentives to have many children?
Without looking it up, some orthodox Jewish sects and Catholics (maybe more indirectly), for starters.
I must admit that my initial reaction was to ask if that was a serious question.
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