Germans have stopped having children -- and the number of couples opting for a childless life is rising every year to the consternation of politicians and employers in the eurozone's biggest economy.
While figures released by the French government this month showed France's population could balloon from its current level of 60.2 million to 75 million by 2050, the UN predicts that Germany's is set to plummet from 82 million to 70.8 million in the same period.
"I am nearly 35 years old, I am married and I haven't got any children," said "Donna," participating in a recent discussion on the Internet site of women's magazine Brigitte.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
"There is no particular reason apart from the fact that I have never imagined myself having any," she said.
A study by Germany's federal institute for demographic research showed that 26 percent of men and 15 percent of women aged between 20 and 39 do not want to start a family, a sharp rise since 1992 when the figures were 12 percent of men and 10 percent of women.
"There is an increasing belief that not having children is the ideal way of life," the authors of the study concluded.
This growing trend has many people in Germany wringing their hands.
With a rapidly aging population, Germany is now distancing itself from its European neighbors in other ways too.
German women, for example, want an average of 1.7 children compared with at least two in most other European countries. Forty percent of university-educated women of child-bearing age are without a child.
"Abandoning the idea of children is abandoning the idea of life," Otto Schily, the radical lawyer turned German interior minister, said recently.
He should know: he has two daughters.
For many women, however, having children means abandoning their careers.
Working mothers complain that all too often they are seen as Rabenmutter, which translates as "cruel mothers" -- women who dump their kids in childcare so they can pursue their personal goals.
Yet in a country where schools generally finish for the day at 1:30pm, balancing work and children is a headache.
"Places in creches are hard to get, and expensive," said Andrea, 35, in the Brigitte chat room. "I just can't imagine myself having a child, staying at home and becoming financially dependent on my partner or the state."
The German government has pledged to create 230,000 daycare places by 2010 and the idea of extending the school day is under discussion in some regions.
Germans also tend to be students longer than in other countries, with many still enrolled at university and college until they are at least 30.
This lengthy study period is "a reliable method of contraception," said the minister responsible for families, Renate Schmidt.
The trend towards childlessness is recent -- until the start of the 1990s almost 60 percent of women aged between 25 and 29 had a baby. The figure has plunged to 29 percent today.
Many recent studies have pinpointed psychological factors as putting the brake on the desire to start a family.
"In Germany, having children isn't sexy," said Marie-Luise Lewicki, the editor of Eltern magazine.
"We don't just need creches and day-long schooling, we need a change in society," she said.
The federal institute for demographic research said the main reason cited for not having children was the lack of either a partner or a stable relationship, which accounted for 83 percent of respondents.
However, nearly 60 percent said concerns for the future of their potential children had dissuaded them.
In a different study, released by the Forsa polling institute in January, only 29 percent of women pointed to the financial burden of a child and only 39 percent named not wanting to give up their career as their reason for not having children.
Having a family "seems to have become an abstract idea," the federal institute concluded.
On April 19, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) gave a public speech, his first in about 17 years. During the address at the Ketagalan Institute in Taipei, Chen’s words were vague and his tone was sour. He said that democracy should not be used as an echo chamber for a single politician, that people must be tolerant of other views, that the president should not act as a dictator and that the judiciary should not get involved in politics. He then went on to say that others with different opinions should not be criticized as “XX fellow travelers,” in reference to
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Liu Shu-pin (劉書彬) asked Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) a question on Tuesday last week about President William Lai’s (賴清德) decision in March to officially define the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as a foreign hostile force. Liu objected to Lai’s decision on two grounds. First, procedurally, suggesting that Lai did not have the right to unilaterally make that decision, and that Cho should have consulted with the Executive Yuan before he endorsed it. Second, Liu objected over national security concerns, saying that the CCP and Chinese President Xi
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS