I just found out today that Germany’s birth rate once dropped to 0.7 back in the ’90s.
I was browsing this sub today and found out that east Germany’s fertility rate briefly dropped to around 0.7 in the 1990s. That honestly shocked me, because I’ve always thought of Germany as one of the more stable European countries with relatively strong welfare systems and decent birth rates.
From what I read, it was mostly caused by the chaos and uncertainty after reunification. Still, 0.7 is an insane number for a western country, especially back in the 90s......
It got me thinking... what would Europe look like today if it had never opened itself up to mass immigration? Would parts of Europe now have fertility rates even lower than East Asia?
What’s interesting is that Europe has taken in huge numbers of immigrants for decades, second only to the US in many ways, yet most European countries are still below replacement level and remain some of the lowest-fertility societies in the world. Even immigrant birth rates tend to fall over time after a generation or two.
Honestly, I think Europe may have unintentionally become a lesson for East Asia. Combined with growing expectations that AI and automation could eventually replace a lot of labor, Europe’s experience seems to be making anti-immigration sentiment in East Asia even stronger before large-scale immigration has really even started there.
So now I’m wondering: will East Asian countries try to deal with demographic decline in their own way without relying heavily on immigration, or will they eventually end up following the same path Europe did?
Curious what people here think.