It's surprising how immigration is almost never mentioned as an alternative to these "population-drop-fighting" measures.
You'd think one of the things they'd do was make it easier for immigrants with some level of skill to get permanent residency.
They actually created a new residency law designed to make immigration to Germany easier for skilled employees just a year ago. Google "blue card". It hasn't had the success they were hoping for, but they're trying.
Actually, as a Blue Card holder, you can file for permanent residency after 33 months. If you learn language to at least B1 level, you can file after only 21 months.
In addition to that, you partner automatically gets work permit without restriction, and you are eligible for all social benefits like health care and Kindergeld from the day one.
Compare that with the H1B / Green Card situation, and the contrast is clear. It was an easy choice for me (yes, I had job offers from both USA and Germany), and will probably attract more people in the future.
Immigration is unpopular here in germany.
Indeed, it is very unpopular among many people.
German politicians, in the past (60s,70s,80s), have brought in many worker-immigrants mainly from turkey. They were badly needed to fill the many vacant spots in the booming economy.
They left no thought to integrating / assimilating them into the german society.
Up until the 1990s the political parties in germany could not even come to grips with the fact that germany was in fact an "immmigration country". They were in denial.
Today germany has 12-14% foreigners, mostly from turkey, and many of them have not been integrated well into the german society.
Also, unemployment is high among this group. Education chances are depressed, etc - you get the picture.
Now, we are in a bind.
On the one hand the birth rate has been dropping for decades.
This has to do with societal trends (more women working, etc) - but is a complicated issue in itself.
Only group with a healthy birth rate, ironically, are the turkish immigrants.
Politicians do not have any idea what to do about the birthrate.
That has to with a cultural memory of nazi-era family policies, which rewarded having many children. It's a taboo today in german politics to try to directly induce families to have more children in any way.
The german economy is already suffering. The term "fachkräftemangel" has been coined for this- which means the industry is already finding it difficult to fill all the vacant spots with qualified personell.
Correct, in fact in general families/women from lower income and education levels (no matter if immigrants or not) tend to have more children than higher educated couples that prioritize their career. Overall germany is also not a very family-with-children-friendly country. This is in stark contrast to, for example, the US.
While Germany has plenty of room for improvement, I'd hardly call the US a shining example of a country that's great for families with children, either.
Not in my experience, and families with children face a great many obstacles.
The abortion rate in the US is about three times that of Germany; the majority of women who have an abortion cite that they cannot afford to have a child as a primary reason.
There is no statutory maternity leave in the US (let alone parental leave).
Depending on what health insurance you have, even having a baby can be pretty pricey; a friend of mine who recently had a baby ended up paying over $2,500 in coinsurance for the delivery alone.
Daycare is generally much more expensive than in Germany, where daycare is heavily subsidized (daycare subsidies for low-income families vary by state).
Having a positive attitude towards families with children is great (and it's arguable whether there's actually a difference), but it doesn't put food on a table or a roof over their head.
The biggest practical problem that German parents face, in my experience, is that schools or daycare centers that are out at noon are difficult to square away with having both a job and children (though the problem of latchkey kids is hardly unknown in the US, either; google "Kim Brathwaite", for example).
Hispanics have high birth rates, and they are a growing minority (30%?), a majority in many states. Also, we have subgroups like Mormons who are very old school catholic in having lots of kids.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. Germany it seems will continue to pay for this mistake from the 50/60/70s in a number of ways unfortunately.
People are now afraid of immigrants in general. Most people don't realize that there is a VERY big difference to the economy from an Indian IT worker - who learns German - assimilates himself culturally (maybe even studied a masters or something in Germany - picking up the finer bits of your complicated culture) & the Turkish family in the shady part of the city thats living on Hartz 4. This is a huge issue for a country thats trying hard to attract foreigners (www.make-it-in-germany.com).
Most other immigrants I know here - eventually get tired of this feeling of constantly have to justify that they arent here to mooch of the system - and are probably providing for some family in Brandenburg with their monthly tax and social security payments (most educated immigrants earn atleast 40-50k€ - its a natural lower limit set by the fact that you cant get a permit otherwise). This means easily 15-20k € in tax and Social security (and lovely SOLI of course) - with which they are supporting a society that looks at them as leeches.
Dont get me wrong - Germans are tolerant - but that's different from inclusive. The tendency is to assume "oh these poor 3rd world people need to come here to have a good living." That simply isnt true - a well qualified person can live an equally good life in the developing world as he would in Germany. (sure maybe not everything is always on time but so what). Many people move to Germany for other reasons - be it hte love for beer (no kidding) , german cars, the green, or they wanted to be with a German person they got to know somewhere. but instead of considering any other possibilities - the average German tends to assume "ah he wants our awesome healthcare & social security).
This needs to change. Especially if you want to tackle the fachkraftemängel. Those qualified people will get employed anywhere. The government gets this and has made small moves to make it "easier" - you can easily get a permit and work here now - this is good. Even the beauraucracy is less of a pain in the ass than a few years ago.
What's missing though is the public education. Merkel herself at some point said "Multiculti has failed in Germany". Foreigners will take an integrationtest, learn the language and even figure out the complicated regulation system. In turn though - you need to offer them more than juts a decent salary and standard of living - you need to offer them acceptance. This is missing. People need to be given reverse integrations training or atleast provided some information - let them understand that these people aren't here to mooch of the system or steal jobs - they're here because to a large extent the country needs them.
You cannot live an equally good life in the developing world. That's a romanticization. First, the top 1% of India has purchasing power equivalent to just above the median purchasing power in the U.S.[1] "Upper middle class" in India is defined as $10-20 international dollars per day.[2]
Second, even if you are top 1% in India living like a top 25% in Indiana, your life is one of walls and enclaves. My family was rich in the developing world. We would go from our house with its high wall and iron gate into our foreign car with driver and tinted windows. We would do anything we could to avoid having to interact with the people on the street, our supposed countrymen.
The US has its enclaves, but I can get in a car and head to the relatively poor coastal town where my wife's parents grew up. I can go eat at the seafood shack by the side of the highway and consider it a treat. I can talk to the people and feel like we all live in the same country. That's living a good life.
[1] See this article, for example: http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/the-.... The couple in the article (one a consultant, another a PR executive) makes 1.8 million rupees per year, equivalent to about $29k USD. Adjusted for purchasing power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity), that's roughly equivalent to $70-80k USD. That's roughly at the top 1/3 mark of US household income, and probably not that far above median for US households where both people are working. As noted in this article, the couple is well within the top 1% of India, which starts at $1.25 million rupees per year. That level is equivalent to about the 57th percentile in the U.S.
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-23271.... $20 PPP-adjusted dollars per day, or $7k/year is around the bottom 5% mark in the U.S. Only 4.6% of Indians have all four of these assets: a TV, a car or scooter, a landline or mobile phone, and a computer or laptop. Even people living in trailer parks in the U.S. will often have all four of these assets.
You missed the point - I´m not talking about the US. You might be able to find solidarity with the folks in your wifes towns seafood joint in the U.S. In Germany you'd at best get curious looks and awkward questions.
Everything else you've stated is either untrue (people lived in strange walled societies) or irrelevant (PPP etc - 29k is enough for people to live a good life in India. In any case the people I referred to - the ones who would even have a chance in places like Germany etc - are well above that 1% figure even in India). I leave it to you to figure out how big 1% of 1.2 Billion is.
> I´m not talking about the US. You might be able to find solidarity with the folks in your wifes towns seafood joint in the U.S. In Germany you'd at best get curious looks and awkward questions.
On the contrary, I think there is more solidarity across economic classes in most of Europe than there is in the U.S.
> Everything else you've stated is either untrue (people lived in strange walled societies)
> or irrelevant (PPP etc - 29k is enough for people to live a good life in India.
Sure, but your premise was that people didn't come to the West from places like India for the economic opportunities, because "a well qualified person can live an equally good life in the developing world as he would in Germany." A programmer in Germany lives a far better quality of life than his counterpart in India, at nearly any level of qualification.
> I leave it to you to figure out how big 1% of 1.2 Billion is.
It doesn't matter how many people are in the 1%--it still means that 99 out of 100 people live in far less comfortable circumstances. And, from my personal experience, living in communities with high income inequality sucks. I find it barely tolerable in Wilmington, DE, and that's a egalitarian paradise in comparison to anywhere in India. Life in India is not "equally good" outside the enclaves frequented by 1%-ers and Western expatriates, and being forced to stick to these enclaves is itself something that undermines quality of life.
well being from what would be considered that 1% of india - I can assure you I didn't live in an enclave where I didn't have access to the "real world" around me.
Getting back to the actual point - quality of life is highly subjective and the fact that there's a strong reverse brain drain happening makes it pretty obvious that there's plenty good opportunities in India right now - educated Indians dont need to go abroad for a good life. Sure there maybe differences - but after a certain level it doesn't matter anyways. The truth is - there are more people in india (also proportionally) - who have access to a decent standard of living today - than there were at any point in its history - and for most Indians thats pretty good already.
More importantly - what you misunderstood by focusing on just that one statement is that - the economic difference is just not attractive enough that companies can ignore the softer aspects. Especially for a country like Germany where the language barrier is anyways a huge disadvantage - just being economically attractive isn't going to be enough for them to draw people in. In fact - a recent article from a leading german weekly itself states that even after simplifying the visa process (if you have a degree in STEM - you can essentially just come here for 6 months and look for work no questions asked) - there hasn't been any sort of significant increase in the number of qualified people coming here. Anecdotal and personal experience, as well as the numbers clearly then point out that even for people who would maybe want better economical conditions - there's other things that matter more.
When you lose yourself in the statistics and GDP calculations - you miss the bigger picture. People are fine with living with less money in places where they feel happy compared to places where they dont feel at home, especially if the difference in the money is not percieved to be significant enough.
"You cannot live an equally good life in the developing world. That's a romanticization. "
Not really. You can't get as good in some aspects, but if you have the money (which is not difficult if you're being poached to work in Europe/the US) you can get beyond on some others.
Like big house with a pool and maids.
Very nice hotels/vacations for a price of an average hotel in Europe
"My family was rich in the developing world. We would go from our house with its high wall and iron gate into our foreign car with driver and tinted windows"
They are not happy with the way the last mass immigration (of the Turkish) turned out. But they have recently made a lot of concessions for in-demand skills like tech, nursing and so on.
And if you get a salary above a certain threshold, you even qualify for a "Blue Card" that allows you to work anywhere in the EU !
Its a good step. The problem though was never the visa or whatever. The problem was and continues to be the fact that Germans as a society have trouble accepting immigrants. The first assumption (probably because of bad experiences with turks) is that these people are here to mooch of the system and wont learn our way of doing things. Thats disastrously untrue - and only serves to make Germany unattractive.
Immigration isn't a panacea. You have to be able to absorb and acculturate those immigrants, and you have a finite capacity to do that.
This will yield down votes, but I'm an immigrant from the subcontinent and I understand what I'm talking about when I say this: it is vital to preserve western culture. Immigration done right can strengthen it and keep it vital, but done wrong it can dilute and corrupt the culture.
Germany is better than India or China or the Middle East or the other countries immigrants would come from. Full stop. Westerners don't appreciate the extent to which a lot of the bad things we perceive to characterize those countries is baked into their culture. Sexism, racism, corruption at the basest level. That will follow immigrants into Germany and take root there unless immigration is slow enough to acculturate the immigrants.
It goes both ways: there seems to be a percentage somewhere between 5% and 10% of "strangers" that people can accept living among them without feeling threatened. If that percentage is exceeded and the main population starts to feel threatened, you get xenophobia and things turn ugly.
That has to be the most ridiculous statement - especially since you claim to come from the subcontinent yourself. Every country has its share of problems and cultural differences - but you're looking at it from a very pessimistic and negative perspective. Germany and any other country can put in measures to ensure the kind of people do immigrate are also ones that would fit into their societies. They don't need to haul them over in boatfulls.
For immigration to serve as a counterweight to declining birth rates, you do need to haul people over in boatfulls. And its a modern classist conceit that the virtues of western culture come from education and wealth rather than socialization and upbringing. There are plenty of educated wealthy middle easterners who cover their daughters faces in public and believe its morally acceptable.
Actually - in a number of those countries its legally required for them to be covered. The point is different - you can't use an extreme example of a hijab to claim that western values are uniquely good - and those coming from eastern countries only create a negative cultural impact. If you understood the point of the article - the goal isn't to increase the birth rate. The goal is to make sure the population doesn't fall to a level where it will not be able to sustain the social structures that exist. This can be countered by controlled highly skilled immigration and is working perfectly fine in Canada and New Zealand among other places. For what its worth though - of all people you should probably be glad not everyone thought that people from the east should stay where they are - otherwise you with all your extreme views on this would've still been stuck in your walled garden in India. Driving around in your foreign car. What an unfortunate existence!
> it is vital to preserve western culture. Immigration done right can strengthen it and keep it vital, but done wrong it can dilute and corrupt the culture.
I've read that the pressure of xenophobia was a big contributor to the assimilation of past waves of American immigrants. Three of my four grandparents were working-class immigrants or the offspring thereof. There was never any doubt they wanted to be, and indeed became or grew up as, "real Americans" --- in no small part because they were (at a minimum) looked down on by the "real Americans."
Certainly xenophobia is not especially admirable. But these days there's a danger of going too far in the other direction: There seems to be a species of political correctness that insists (sometimes loudly) that every other culture is at least as virtuous as American/Western culture and should be allowed to take root and spread in whatever fertile Western environment its human carriers decide they want to live in.
Immigration is really a major point. As an immigrant from south European country that moved to Germany with a plan to stay here with the already formed family, all I can say it's not that easy.
It's not only about giving the immigrant right to work, live, later vote in Germany. It's about absorbing them, making their life easier, and truly helping them to integrate into society. That's the effort that, right now, an immigrant has to make himself, but there's no much support from the state.
My own example, I came here on Blue Card. That was easy. Then, I had to wait for half a year before my wife and children could join me. Then we had to wait for another half year before my children could start with the kindergarten. Only after that, my wife could actually start going to language / integration course. All in all, a year wasted before we could even start integrating. In addition to that, my son will start school next year, and will have only one year at German kindergarten instead of two. That will severely impact his ability to actually attend school in a yet unlearned language.
What I want to say is that integration of immigrant is not easy, and there's much more that needs to be done. If you want them to integrate into the society, you should treat them much better, even better than citizen. Why? Because Germany needs them?
If it's not done properly, in 50 years there will be no more German way of life. Majority of the people will not know how to use "der", "die" and "das" properly and would not even care about that. Half of the German population will be made of non integrated immigrants, leaving in small communities of people with the same origin.
yes - this is exactly the point I made in my comment above. Couldnt agree with you more. Dont just make getting a visa or a job easy - make it easier for people to integrate - make people more accepted.
What's the deal with working in Germany as a non-German speaker nowadays? Is it possible to get on alright in tech companies or are they still very much German only?
I met a couple of postdocs and such who didn’t speak German (and, in some cases, their English wasn’t all that good either) during my undergrad in Berlin. I guess it’s possible in larger companies or universities and larger cities where people are used to a fair deal of non-German speakers.
But I wouldn’t suggest moving here permanently without knowing, or at least planning to learn, some German. After all, it’s a nice language with a decent amount of original content and if English is your native language probably one of the easier ones to learn.
Anecdotally (from personal experience) it's absolutely no problem at all, at least if it's tech/engineering-related. That said, picking up some German isn't too hard* and is probably recommended :)
*I say this as someone learning through Duolingo at the moment.
In tech companies there should be relatively few problems. In my company of 25 people there have been 4 immigrants with poor German skills.
Though I have to admit it's not a pretty sight when a Russian programmer is having a disagreement with a German project manager and both rely on mediocre English skills. The problem is not so much with direct miscommunication as with the inability to express more complex thoughts.
Working at multinational technical companies it is not much of a problem as the work language tends to be English.
However in many such companies employees might speak English with foreigner colleagues only for work related issues, leaving them alone for about anything else. Meaning little social interaction besides work requests.
Being invited for lunch while most of the table speaks German can be a common scenario, for example.
For an acceptable social life in Germany, having at least a basic grasp of German is a must have, specially outside big cities.
You can get into tech companies and do well too. The problem is the softer side. Social life is just not the same as in other more integrative societies like the US or the UK.
Whenever I see these concerns about population decline (occurring in many parts of the world now), I can't help but think: why fight population decline? Embrace it, focus on improving the quality of life per citizen. Leverage robotics to bring drastically higher productivity to a smaller base of workers. Massive populations will be a liability in the not-so-distant future, as nearly all forms of repetitive manufacturing is performed by robotic platforms. For most countries, the larger the population, the more social upheaval there will be in the transition.
Within 20 years there will be wide-spread protests against robots in the US, with calls to outlaw robotic manufacturing, union calls to limit robot use and artificially increase robot cost to make it "fair" for human labor, and lobbying efforts to restrict which tasks robots are allowed to take over.
The problem with population decline is that governments operate as a Ponzi scheme. Every day they spend more than they have and rely on an expanding population (tax base) in the future to pay for today's deficits.
The problem is still there with any social support system for retirement: to work effectively, you need enough people paying now to cover the people on the rolls. If the population drops too much, the social safety net for retirees becomes insolvent. You can, of course, do the opposite of adding new workers: simply cause every new worker to pay more than the previous worker - but at what point do workers decide it's simply not worth it to work, when so much of their income is being spent paying for earlier retirees?
It's a balancing act for sure. Previously, most western countries enjoyed a population growth, which meant more workers paying in than taking out, as this trend is reversing in nearly all western countries, it will be interesting to see how each country deals with it. In the U.S. the focus is on immigration and putting additional limits on what one can take out of the system - I'm not entirely sure that this is the right response, but I don't think simply ratcheting costs up on tomorrow's workers is the right answer either.
As to robotics, well, that's a whole 'nother basket to deal with. I don't think that expanding robotics automatically creates worker revolts - if done well, it can create opportunities where they didn't exist before. Where once the only low-skilled jobs available were heavy labor and highly fungible services, we could create whole new classes of jobs relating to less fungible services (e.g. hyper-localized services), and with the possibilities of expansion off of the planet - there will be many opportunities for new work. I do believe that robotics will reach the tipping point right around the time that space exploration truly opens up. If it doesn't, my prediction that most employment will be in the armies of nations - as we fight over dwindling resources.
The US focuses on immigration but also investment schemes like 401Ks, which require a continuously growing economy to work. Thankfully, we have lots of land to grow on.
As for robots, watch Japan: they have an aging population, an aversion to immigration, and a love for robots.
"what you see is the higher the gender equality, the higher the birthrate"
Yeah, I am sure in Bangladesh and Nigeria they have great gender equality.
Have more children, we have the childcare also seems like a stupid proposition. So you have the kids but no time to see them? 24h child care - great signal. So I can work round the clock for nothing?
I have a different proposal: pay employers for every child that a women employed with them has. So instead of being a liability, employers could earn money by encouraging their employees to have kids.
> pay employers for every child that a women employed with them has.
I understand the motivation for this policy - to me the all-to-common idea that child-rearing age women are a liability is awful.
However, and its a big however, the law-of-unintended-consequences is going to come round to your house and set light to the sofa after nicking your TV.
> Have more children, we have the childcare also seems like a stupid proposition. So you have the kids but no time to see them? 24h child care - great signal. So I can work round the clock for nothing?
Bullshit. "24h" child care simply means that you don't have to choose your job to fit the opening hours of your child care provider.
> I have a different proposal: pay employers for every child that a women employed with them has. So instead of being a liability, employers could earn money by encouraging their employees to have kids.
And of course there's not chance that will be abused...
How - faking child births? If society wants more kids, it should pay up.
The point about the childcare thing is: the solution is not providing parents to get rid of their kids so that they can work. The proper solution would be to enable parents to work less and still have time for their kids.
You think catering to parents with flexible work schedules will have a significant impact on birth rates? How many people does that concern anyway?
No - by faking employment to get the subsidy for mothers who don't want to (or cannot) work. And of course you'd have unintend consequences for wage levels.
> The point about the childcare thing is: the solution is not providing parents to get rid of their kids so that they can work. The proper solution would be to enable parents to work less and still have time for their kids.
How do you see those as two contradicting (or even different) things? Even if you "work less" you need someone totake care of your kid while you work.
> You think catering to parents with flexible work schedules will have a significant impact on birth rates? How many people does that concern anyway?
Many more than you think, apparently. Sweden's fertility rate is much better than Germany's (1.94) and they're the inventors of 24h child care.
The problem is, there are no good incentives to pay for you to have an 18+ year responsibility.
Pay to give birth? Wow, what a couple hundred bucks? Maybe a $1000? Pay directly for services that children would use?
The problem is, there is no good way to subsidize being a good, responsible parent. You have to want to be. And more people are simply opting not to have children.
"The problem is, there are no good incentives to pay for you to have an 18+ year responsibility."
If you think like that, don't have kids. I think people should have kids because they like having them around.
If we go extinct because people don't like kids anymore, so be it. It would just be a shame if we went extinct because people can't afford children anymore.
But I didn't mean pay parents, I meant pay employers.
Also Germany already pays up to 20000€ for kids, if I remember correctly (they pay a percentage of the mothers salary in her last job for 12 months).
This is a dumb article, constantly repeated. Germany, like many countries (though less so), is currently suffering from a demand crisis where there are not enough well paying jobs for the current population.
The most important thing to consider is productivity growth, though, which according to some random blog I just googled[1] was 2.5% from 1985-1990, 2.9% from 1990-1995, 1.9% from 1995-2000, and 1.4% from 2001-2006. Assuming an average of 2% productivity growth for the next 47 years, each the 2 2060 workers will be 1.02^47 (2.5) times as productive as today's employees, allowing the three individuals (2 workers and a supported retiree) to live a lifestyle twice as nice as the current population.
That calculation doesn't include the added benefits of a lower population, such as more space and crime reduction.
(for completeness' sake, assuming a 1% productivity gain a year means that these 3 individuals from 2060 would be living a lifestyle only 5% [edit: my math was bad here, it's actually 33%] nicer than the current standard. Also, both examples assume a reasonable distribution of wealth.)
Assuming, of course, that productivity gains are shared equally across the population. The problem: that's not what has been happening. Instead, median wages have not quite kept up with inflation while the super rich and parasitic industries like investment banks reap the gains.
Contrast this with the United States, where overpopulation is a growing challenge and some organizations are suggesting policy changes to achieve a smaller, more sustainable fertility rate. This nonprofit, called NPG, is a pretty interesting and reasonable one; it advocates for the majority of American women to have fewer than three children, and it calls for non-coercive tax incentives that encourage Americans to have smaller families: http://www.npg.org/faq.html
There are plenty of examples of over population in the world, but the US is not one of them. Our growth is slowing and there are huge amounts of available land. The country could easily be several times its size in population.
Your statement about the United States' available land makes the assumption that the American population is evenly distributed across urban and rural areas. In reality, more than 80 percent of the country's population lives in urban areas. The population in those areas grew by 12.1 percent between 2000 and 2010. Just because spacious rural areas exist doesn't mean that Americans are willing or able to move to them.
Those are interesting examples worth discussing, but, as you know, a handful of anecdotes doesn't invalidate national statistics reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.
You said the US was getting overcrowded. Overwhelming evidence says this is hardly the case. Statistics cannot tell you a city is overcrowded, that is a judgement call. And as far as density no city in the US rates even in the top 20.
Check out some of the sources provided in one of my comments above, including the one that shows growing homeless and food shortages in 21 major American cities, and urban school systems that are 200% over capacity.
As the labor force moves away from manufacturing to "knowledge-based," I'm not sure why you think population growth will occur in rural areas. Knowledge wants to be near knowledge, growth will continue to be concentrated in large cities.
Wow if the US is overpopulated Germany, with 6x the population density, must be choking on excess humanity! I was there recently though and I can't say I thought it seemed like much of a problem... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...
Contrast this with the United States, where overpopulation is a growing challenge
Could you define "overpopulation" or cite sources that show this is a problem in the United States?
While the population has risen more than 50 million people in the last 60 years (1), housing stock, food output, and economic activity, has also risen. In addition, while there are many urban and suburban areas that are more crowded now than they were in the mid-20th century, there are also thousands of small towns and cities that began losing residents long ago (2).
More than 80 percent of the United States' population lives in urban areas, and the urban population grew by 12.1 percent between 2000 and 2010. (1) The fact that some towns are underpopulated doesn't mitigate overcrowding in cities because we can't assume that urban families are willing or able to relocate to rural areas.
You wrote that "housing stock, food output and economic activity" have risen, but evidence suggests that have not risen at a rate proportional to the population growth in America's largest cities. National Geographic wrote a nice general article about the economic & environmental problems caused by overpopulation, using Fresno, CA, as an example.(2)
Some specific examples:
New York City's public schools were 200 percent over capacity as of 2008 (3).
A 2012 study showed that 21 major American cities had experienced an increase in hunger and homelessness. (4)
NPG is notable for being funded by FAIR, a virulent anti-immigrant group. (Example quote from FAIR founder: "As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?")
I was initially worried about their stance on immigration, too. It was reassuring to see this on their FAQ page:
"Immigration (as it relates to population growth) is simply about numbers – not race, ethnicity, skin color, or nation of origin. NPG strongly condemns racism in all its forms."
While it's certainly possible to oppose immigration for noble reasons, the documented history of the NPG indicates that this is not the case for this group.
"If Germany is to avoid a major labor shortage, experts say, it will have to find ways to keep older workers in their jobs, after decades of pushing them toward early retirement"
Doesn't it suck when a society is forced into valuing its elderly.
It actually seems responsible of a society to balance itself with its environment. Population overgrowth is a major issue in the world and I applaud the people of Europe who, and possibly unconsciously, are reaching a greater balance with their environment in the hopes of securing an actual future in it.
The idea is that humans exhibit the characteristics of a cancer within its environment. Its only a metaphor for how humans have treated their environment and is not meant to be taken literally.
Really...I don't get the down vote here. Maybe cynicism is not understood or, possibly worse, overpopulation is not seen as an issue. The links were for entertainment value, a simple metaphor.
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[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadAfter 5 years in the country you can file for permanent residency.
In addition to that, you partner automatically gets work permit without restriction, and you are eligible for all social benefits like health care and Kindergeld from the day one.
Compare that with the H1B / Green Card situation, and the contrast is clear. It was an easy choice for me (yes, I had job offers from both USA and Germany), and will probably attract more people in the future.
Not to mention it doesn't take almost a full year to get like the H1B
Getting B1 level in German should be not so complicated and attainable in, let's say, 18 months.
German politicians, in the past (60s,70s,80s), have brought in many worker-immigrants mainly from turkey. They were badly needed to fill the many vacant spots in the booming economy.
They left no thought to integrating / assimilating them into the german society. Up until the 1990s the political parties in germany could not even come to grips with the fact that germany was in fact an "immmigration country". They were in denial.
Today germany has 12-14% foreigners, mostly from turkey, and many of them have not been integrated well into the german society. Also, unemployment is high among this group. Education chances are depressed, etc - you get the picture.
Now, we are in a bind. On the one hand the birth rate has been dropping for decades. This has to do with societal trends (more women working, etc) - but is a complicated issue in itself.
Only group with a healthy birth rate, ironically, are the turkish immigrants.
Politicians do not have any idea what to do about the birthrate. That has to with a cultural memory of nazi-era family policies, which rewarded having many children. It's a taboo today in german politics to try to directly induce families to have more children in any way.
The german economy is already suffering. The term "fachkräftemangel" has been coined for this- which means the industry is already finding it difficult to fill all the vacant spots with qualified personell.
The abortion rate in the US is about three times that of Germany; the majority of women who have an abortion cite that they cannot afford to have a child as a primary reason.
There is no statutory maternity leave in the US (let alone parental leave).
Depending on what health insurance you have, even having a baby can be pretty pricey; a friend of mine who recently had a baby ended up paying over $2,500 in coinsurance for the delivery alone.
Daycare is generally much more expensive than in Germany, where daycare is heavily subsidized (daycare subsidies for low-income families vary by state).
Having a positive attitude towards families with children is great (and it's arguable whether there's actually a difference), but it doesn't put food on a table or a roof over their head.
The biggest practical problem that German parents face, in my experience, is that schools or daycare centers that are out at noon are difficult to square away with having both a job and children (though the problem of latchkey kids is hardly unknown in the US, either; google "Kim Brathwaite", for example).
US fertility : 2.06 German fertility : 1.42 (this is WITH 10%-15% turkish immigrants having a birthrate of > 2.4)
So what is it ?
People are now afraid of immigrants in general. Most people don't realize that there is a VERY big difference to the economy from an Indian IT worker - who learns German - assimilates himself culturally (maybe even studied a masters or something in Germany - picking up the finer bits of your complicated culture) & the Turkish family in the shady part of the city thats living on Hartz 4. This is a huge issue for a country thats trying hard to attract foreigners (www.make-it-in-germany.com).
Most other immigrants I know here - eventually get tired of this feeling of constantly have to justify that they arent here to mooch of the system - and are probably providing for some family in Brandenburg with their monthly tax and social security payments (most educated immigrants earn atleast 40-50k€ - its a natural lower limit set by the fact that you cant get a permit otherwise). This means easily 15-20k € in tax and Social security (and lovely SOLI of course) - with which they are supporting a society that looks at them as leeches.
Dont get me wrong - Germans are tolerant - but that's different from inclusive. The tendency is to assume "oh these poor 3rd world people need to come here to have a good living." That simply isnt true - a well qualified person can live an equally good life in the developing world as he would in Germany. (sure maybe not everything is always on time but so what). Many people move to Germany for other reasons - be it hte love for beer (no kidding) , german cars, the green, or they wanted to be with a German person they got to know somewhere. but instead of considering any other possibilities - the average German tends to assume "ah he wants our awesome healthcare & social security).
This needs to change. Especially if you want to tackle the fachkraftemängel. Those qualified people will get employed anywhere. The government gets this and has made small moves to make it "easier" - you can easily get a permit and work here now - this is good. Even the beauraucracy is less of a pain in the ass than a few years ago.
What's missing though is the public education. Merkel herself at some point said "Multiculti has failed in Germany". Foreigners will take an integrationtest, learn the language and even figure out the complicated regulation system. In turn though - you need to offer them more than juts a decent salary and standard of living - you need to offer them acceptance. This is missing. People need to be given reverse integrations training or atleast provided some information - let them understand that these people aren't here to mooch of the system or steal jobs - they're here because to a large extent the country needs them.
Second, even if you are top 1% in India living like a top 25% in Indiana, your life is one of walls and enclaves. My family was rich in the developing world. We would go from our house with its high wall and iron gate into our foreign car with driver and tinted windows. We would do anything we could to avoid having to interact with the people on the street, our supposed countrymen.
The US has its enclaves, but I can get in a car and head to the relatively poor coastal town where my wife's parents grew up. I can go eat at the seafood shack by the side of the highway and consider it a treat. I can talk to the people and feel like we all live in the same country. That's living a good life.
[1] See this article, for example: http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/the-.... The couple in the article (one a consultant, another a PR executive) makes 1.8 million rupees per year, equivalent to about $29k USD. Adjusted for purchasing power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity), that's roughly equivalent to $70-80k USD. That's roughly at the top 1/3 mark of US household income, and probably not that far above median for US households where both people are working. As noted in this article, the couple is well within the top 1% of India, which starts at $1.25 million rupees per year. That level is equivalent to about the 57th percentile in the U.S.
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-23271.... $20 PPP-adjusted dollars per day, or $7k/year is around the bottom 5% mark in the U.S. Only 4.6% of Indians have all four of these assets: a TV, a car or scooter, a landline or mobile phone, and a computer or laptop. Even people living in trailer parks in the U.S. will often have all four of these assets.
Everything else you've stated is either untrue (people lived in strange walled societies) or irrelevant (PPP etc - 29k is enough for people to live a good life in India. In any case the people I referred to - the ones who would even have a chance in places like Germany etc - are well above that 1% figure even in India). I leave it to you to figure out how big 1% of 1.2 Billion is.
On the contrary, I think there is more solidarity across economic classes in most of Europe than there is in the U.S.
> Everything else you've stated is either untrue (people lived in strange walled societies)
They certainly do: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/at-bangalores-gate....
> or irrelevant (PPP etc - 29k is enough for people to live a good life in India.
Sure, but your premise was that people didn't come to the West from places like India for the economic opportunities, because "a well qualified person can live an equally good life in the developing world as he would in Germany." A programmer in Germany lives a far better quality of life than his counterpart in India, at nearly any level of qualification.
> I leave it to you to figure out how big 1% of 1.2 Billion is.
It doesn't matter how many people are in the 1%--it still means that 99 out of 100 people live in far less comfortable circumstances. And, from my personal experience, living in communities with high income inequality sucks. I find it barely tolerable in Wilmington, DE, and that's a egalitarian paradise in comparison to anywhere in India. Life in India is not "equally good" outside the enclaves frequented by 1%-ers and Western expatriates, and being forced to stick to these enclaves is itself something that undermines quality of life.
Getting back to the actual point - quality of life is highly subjective and the fact that there's a strong reverse brain drain happening makes it pretty obvious that there's plenty good opportunities in India right now - educated Indians dont need to go abroad for a good life. Sure there maybe differences - but after a certain level it doesn't matter anyways. The truth is - there are more people in india (also proportionally) - who have access to a decent standard of living today - than there were at any point in its history - and for most Indians thats pretty good already.
More importantly - what you misunderstood by focusing on just that one statement is that - the economic difference is just not attractive enough that companies can ignore the softer aspects. Especially for a country like Germany where the language barrier is anyways a huge disadvantage - just being economically attractive isn't going to be enough for them to draw people in. In fact - a recent article from a leading german weekly itself states that even after simplifying the visa process (if you have a degree in STEM - you can essentially just come here for 6 months and look for work no questions asked) - there hasn't been any sort of significant increase in the number of qualified people coming here. Anecdotal and personal experience, as well as the numbers clearly then point out that even for people who would maybe want better economical conditions - there's other things that matter more.
When you lose yourself in the statistics and GDP calculations - you miss the bigger picture. People are fine with living with less money in places where they feel happy compared to places where they dont feel at home, especially if the difference in the money is not percieved to be significant enough.
Not really. You can't get as good in some aspects, but if you have the money (which is not difficult if you're being poached to work in Europe/the US) you can get beyond on some others.
Like big house with a pool and maids.
Very nice hotels/vacations for a price of an average hotel in Europe
"My family was rich in the developing world. We would go from our house with its high wall and iron gate into our foreign car with driver and tinted windows"
Spot on
And if you get a salary above a certain threshold, you even qualify for a "Blue Card" that allows you to work anywhere in the EU !
These initiatives, started years ago, so far have flopped.
This will yield down votes, but I'm an immigrant from the subcontinent and I understand what I'm talking about when I say this: it is vital to preserve western culture. Immigration done right can strengthen it and keep it vital, but done wrong it can dilute and corrupt the culture.
Germany is better than India or China or the Middle East or the other countries immigrants would come from. Full stop. Westerners don't appreciate the extent to which a lot of the bad things we perceive to characterize those countries is baked into their culture. Sexism, racism, corruption at the basest level. That will follow immigrants into Germany and take root there unless immigration is slow enough to acculturate the immigrants.
I've read that the pressure of xenophobia was a big contributor to the assimilation of past waves of American immigrants. Three of my four grandparents were working-class immigrants or the offspring thereof. There was never any doubt they wanted to be, and indeed became or grew up as, "real Americans" --- in no small part because they were (at a minimum) looked down on by the "real Americans."
Certainly xenophobia is not especially admirable. But these days there's a danger of going too far in the other direction: There seems to be a species of political correctness that insists (sometimes loudly) that every other culture is at least as virtuous as American/Western culture and should be allowed to take root and spread in whatever fertile Western environment its human carriers decide they want to live in.
It's not only about giving the immigrant right to work, live, later vote in Germany. It's about absorbing them, making their life easier, and truly helping them to integrate into society. That's the effort that, right now, an immigrant has to make himself, but there's no much support from the state.
My own example, I came here on Blue Card. That was easy. Then, I had to wait for half a year before my wife and children could join me. Then we had to wait for another half year before my children could start with the kindergarten. Only after that, my wife could actually start going to language / integration course. All in all, a year wasted before we could even start integrating. In addition to that, my son will start school next year, and will have only one year at German kindergarten instead of two. That will severely impact his ability to actually attend school in a yet unlearned language.
What I want to say is that integration of immigrant is not easy, and there's much more that needs to be done. If you want them to integrate into the society, you should treat them much better, even better than citizen. Why? Because Germany needs them?
If it's not done properly, in 50 years there will be no more German way of life. Majority of the people will not know how to use "der", "die" and "das" properly and would not even care about that. Half of the German population will be made of non integrated immigrants, leaving in small communities of people with the same origin.
But I wouldn’t suggest moving here permanently without knowing, or at least planning to learn, some German. After all, it’s a nice language with a decent amount of original content and if English is your native language probably one of the easier ones to learn.
*I say this as someone learning through Duolingo at the moment.
Though I have to admit it's not a pretty sight when a Russian programmer is having a disagreement with a German project manager and both rely on mediocre English skills. The problem is not so much with direct miscommunication as with the inability to express more complex thoughts.
However in many such companies employees might speak English with foreigner colleagues only for work related issues, leaving them alone for about anything else. Meaning little social interaction besides work requests.
Being invited for lunch while most of the table speaks German can be a common scenario, for example.
For an acceptable social life in Germany, having at least a basic grasp of German is a must have, specially outside big cities.
Within 20 years there will be wide-spread protests against robots in the US, with calls to outlaw robotic manufacturing, union calls to limit robot use and artificially increase robot cost to make it "fair" for human labor, and lobbying efforts to restrict which tasks robots are allowed to take over.
It's a balancing act for sure. Previously, most western countries enjoyed a population growth, which meant more workers paying in than taking out, as this trend is reversing in nearly all western countries, it will be interesting to see how each country deals with it. In the U.S. the focus is on immigration and putting additional limits on what one can take out of the system - I'm not entirely sure that this is the right response, but I don't think simply ratcheting costs up on tomorrow's workers is the right answer either.
As to robotics, well, that's a whole 'nother basket to deal with. I don't think that expanding robotics automatically creates worker revolts - if done well, it can create opportunities where they didn't exist before. Where once the only low-skilled jobs available were heavy labor and highly fungible services, we could create whole new classes of jobs relating to less fungible services (e.g. hyper-localized services), and with the possibilities of expansion off of the planet - there will be many opportunities for new work. I do believe that robotics will reach the tipping point right around the time that space exploration truly opens up. If it doesn't, my prediction that most employment will be in the armies of nations - as we fight over dwindling resources.
As for robots, watch Japan: they have an aging population, an aversion to immigration, and a love for robots.
Yeah, I am sure in Bangladesh and Nigeria they have great gender equality.
Have more children, we have the childcare also seems like a stupid proposition. So you have the kids but no time to see them? 24h child care - great signal. So I can work round the clock for nothing?
I have a different proposal: pay employers for every child that a women employed with them has. So instead of being a liability, employers could earn money by encouraging their employees to have kids.
I understand the motivation for this policy - to me the all-to-common idea that child-rearing age women are a liability is awful.
However, and its a big however, the law-of-unintended-consequences is going to come round to your house and set light to the sofa after nicking your TV.
I'm not sure I am even in favor of such policies, but maybe at least certain vocal would get their wish (more women in employment+more kids).
Bullshit. "24h" child care simply means that you don't have to choose your job to fit the opening hours of your child care provider.
> I have a different proposal: pay employers for every child that a women employed with them has. So instead of being a liability, employers could earn money by encouraging their employees to have kids.
And of course there's not chance that will be abused...
The point about the childcare thing is: the solution is not providing parents to get rid of their kids so that they can work. The proper solution would be to enable parents to work less and still have time for their kids.
You think catering to parents with flexible work schedules will have a significant impact on birth rates? How many people does that concern anyway?
This can only work if those who pay also get the benefits. Then the employer paying the support must get a cut of the adult child's income.
No - by faking employment to get the subsidy for mothers who don't want to (or cannot) work. And of course you'd have unintend consequences for wage levels.
> The point about the childcare thing is: the solution is not providing parents to get rid of their kids so that they can work. The proper solution would be to enable parents to work less and still have time for their kids.
How do you see those as two contradicting (or even different) things? Even if you "work less" you need someone totake care of your kid while you work.
> You think catering to parents with flexible work schedules will have a significant impact on birth rates? How many people does that concern anyway?
Many more than you think, apparently. Sweden's fertility rate is much better than Germany's (1.94) and they're the inventors of 24h child care.
Pay to give birth? Wow, what a couple hundred bucks? Maybe a $1000? Pay directly for services that children would use?
The problem is, there is no good way to subsidize being a good, responsible parent. You have to want to be. And more people are simply opting not to have children.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2148636,00....
If you think like that, don't have kids. I think people should have kids because they like having them around.
If we go extinct because people don't like kids anymore, so be it. It would just be a shame if we went extinct because people can't afford children anymore.
But I didn't mean pay parents, I meant pay employers.
Also Germany already pays up to 20000€ for kids, if I remember correctly (they pay a percentage of the mothers salary in her last job for 12 months).
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2010/11/going...
The most important thing to consider is productivity growth, though, which according to some random blog I just googled[1] was 2.5% from 1985-1990, 2.9% from 1990-1995, 1.9% from 1995-2000, and 1.4% from 2001-2006. Assuming an average of 2% productivity growth for the next 47 years, each the 2 2060 workers will be 1.02^47 (2.5) times as productive as today's employees, allowing the three individuals (2 workers and a supported retiree) to live a lifestyle twice as nice as the current population.
That calculation doesn't include the added benefits of a lower population, such as more space and crime reduction.
(for completeness' sake, assuming a 1% productivity gain a year means that these 3 individuals from 2060 would be living a lifestyle only 5% [edit: my math was bad here, it's actually 33%] nicer than the current standard. Also, both examples assume a reasonable distribution of wealth.)
[1] http://www.ulrich-fritsche.net/blog/labour-productivity-grow...
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census...
Here are a few places in the US that don't have an overpopulation problem: Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Hartford.
Could you define "overpopulation" or cite sources that show this is a problem in the United States?
While the population has risen more than 50 million people in the last 60 years (1), housing stock, food output, and economic activity, has also risen. In addition, while there are many urban and suburban areas that are more crowded now than they were in the mid-20th century, there are also thousands of small towns and cities that began losing residents long ago (2).
1. http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&c...
2. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/04/us/dying-rural-towns-play-...
You wrote that "housing stock, food output and economic activity" have risen, but evidence suggests that have not risen at a rate proportional to the population growth in America's largest cities. National Geographic wrote a nice general article about the economic & environmental problems caused by overpopulation, using Fresno, CA, as an example.(2)
Some specific examples:
New York City's public schools were 200 percent over capacity as of 2008 (3).
A 2012 study showed that 21 major American cities had experienced an increase in hunger and homelessness. (4)
(1) http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census
(2) : http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habita...
(3) http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/new-york-city-...
(4) http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/20/us-usa-economy-hun...
"Immigration (as it relates to population growth) is simply about numbers – not race, ethnicity, skin color, or nation of origin. NPG strongly condemns racism in all its forms."
Immigration is probably a major feat of beaurocracy but not too hard in principle if you have looked-for skills ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_%28European_Union%29 ).
Doesn't it suck when a society is forced into valuing its elderly.
It actually seems responsible of a society to balance itself with its environment. Population overgrowth is a major issue in the world and I applaud the people of Europe who, and possibly unconsciously, are reaching a greater balance with their environment in the hopes of securing an actual future in it.
Can't help to think of...
Humans are a virus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Na9-jV_OJI
Humans as Cancer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0R6EvtGnoE