This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 17 Jul 2008, by Tom.
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17 Jul 08
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That's the view Shorto says makes sense from all the data. Ross says he and Reihan believe there should be no necessary antagonism between feminists and social conservatives with regard to the desirability of policies that make for more workforce flexibility -- that is, the state should make it easier for companies to allow women to blend childraising with employment. Agreed.
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Still, the depth and magnitude of the fertility crisis in Europe (and elsewhere, though Europe's the only place I really care about) suggests that there's something mysterious and, to my mind, malevolent, working in the deepest currents of the postmodern psyche. Despite all the financial hardships having larger families -- and we're not talking five or six kids, but two or three -- brings to modern Europeans, the fact is Europe, as a whole, has never been more prosperous. In times of greater material poverty, Europeans still managed to have more than enough children to replace themselves.
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And today? As wealthy as they are, they're choosing civilizational suicide. Despite some attempt to see the sunny side of collapse, here's how Shorto's piece ends:
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Haub wasn't buying it. "Maybe tinkering with the retirement age and making other economic adjustments is good," he said. "But you can't go on forever with a total fertility rate of 1.2. If you compare the size of the 0-to-4 and 29-to-34 age groups in Spain and Italy right now, you see the younger is almost half the size of the older. You can't keep going with a completely upside-down age distribution, with the pyramid standing on its point. You can't have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home."
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