by Les May
IN a recent article I made reference to the fall in the UK
birth rate since 1960, and the impact this will have on my children's
generation. But the UK is not alone in this regard. A fall in the birth rate
since 1960 is a phenomenon which is common to all 28 EU countries according to
William Reville, emeritus professor of
biochemistry at University College Cork.
In an article headed 'Why is Europe losing the will to breed?'
in last Thursday's Irish Times Reville points out that to keep the population
of a country constant it is necessary for each woman to give birth to 2.1
children on average. He provides data
which shows that the mean birthrate throughout the EU is only 1.56. Ireland has the highest birth rate of 1.94
and Portugal the lowest at 1.23, though there are four more countries where the
birth rate is less than 1.4. For
comparison the present birth rate in the UK is 1.81.
He goes on to say :
'European societies increasingly are no longer self
sustaining. For example, if current
trends continue, every new generation of Spaniards will be 40% smaller than the
previous one. In Italy the percentage of
the population over 65 will increase from 2.7% now to 18.8% in 2050. By 2060 the population of Germany is
projected to drop from 81 millions to 67 millions and by 2030 the UN projects
that by 2030 the percentage of Germans in the work force will drop by 7% to
54%. In order to compensate for this
shortage Germany needs to absorb 533,000 immigrants per year, which puts Angela
Merkel's current immigration policy into context.'
As I have argued in an earlier article this matters because
the non-working section of the population, children, older people, the sick and
the disabled, rely upon the surplus generated by the fraction of the population
which is working. Such a situation is
only sustainable if the fraction of the working, i.e. younger, population is
sufficiently high both to support themselves and generate a large enough
surplus.
But as Reville
points out in the longer term this immigration is not a solution because when
the birth rate falls to about 1.5 even immigration will not hold the population
steady over time.
Whilst I have focussed upon the fact that for the immediate
future there seems little alternative to continued immigration whichever side
is victorious in the upcoming referendum, the economic case is only part of the
picture. Large scale migration has an
impact upon the host society.
As Reville puts i:
'European civilisation has given the
world many cherished values, freedoms and institutions, including the classical
legacy of Greece and Rome; the rule of law; the separation of church and state;
modern science; individual freedom; a fabulous heritage of music, painting,
sculpture and architecture, and more.'
This too matters, because quoting Reville again:
'European
values are not universal and there is no necessary reason to expect other
civilisations to adopt these values simply because they come to Europe to
partake of the technical and commercial fruits of western civilisation.'
It is fashionable to ignore such concerns and to dismiss
those who raise them as 'xenophobic' or 'racist', but there is a good moral
case to be made for taking a more robust approach to immigration.
Immigration benefits the individual migrant; immigrants make the journey in search of a
better life.
It benefits a receiving nation like the UK by adding to the
workforce and helps produce that surplus which will pay the pensions of those
retiring around the year 2030. But it
impoverishes the donor nation especially when the migrant is a well qualified young
person who has been trained at the expense of the donor nation.
There is nothing new in this. After the WW2 the UK needed to produce and
export as much as possible, (and build the Welfare State on the surplus). So immigration from countries like Ireland
was encouraged. An elderly friend who died a year ago came from Ireland at the
age of 26 in 1948 to work in a Castleton (Rochdale) mill and did not think it
an indignity that a medical check was made to make sure she was not
pregnant. Being as she put it 'a big
strong farm girl' she was given better paid 'men's work' and became a mule
spinner. And very happy she was to spend
the rest of her life here.
In Germany, Angela Merkel's cabinet has approved new measures
to help the country to deal with the influx of more than a million new
immigrants. In return for a package
providing immigrants with better access to the job market and the creation of
100,000 government funded 'job opportunities', migrants will be expected to
undertake orientation and language courses.
The cabinet statement said:
'Learning the German language quickly, rapid
integration in training, studies and the labour market, and an understanding of
and compliance with the principles of living together in our society and
compliance with our laws are essential for successful integration... The
newcomers are to become good neighbours and citizens, which will enable us to
strengthen social cohesion and prevent parallel structures in our country.'
This contrast sharply with what to date has been the UK
approach which has sometimes generated an exceptionalism in the name of
multi-culturalism. Recently Labour MP Chuka Umunna has launched a new All Party
Parliamentary Group (APPG) on social integration. Whether it will 'bite the bullet' in quite
the way that the German cabinet has I don't know. Unless it argues the case for investment in
integrating migrants into our way of life it may just prove to be another
talking shop.
If you don't like my argument that immigration is necessary
to pay the pensions of my children's generation the answer is in your own hands. Go forth and multiply.
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