The incredible shrinking Germans

Dopo la pausa per le feste natalizie tornano anche gli aggiornamento da Potsdamer Platz. Qui di seguito pubblico una sintesi di un mio articolo in inglese per la rivista Longitude sull'invecchiamento della popolazione in Germania. Longitude è una rivista internazionale di politica interamente in inglese ed è acquistabile (o ordinabile) in tutte le migliori librerie. Altrimenti si può sempre leggere su ipad scaricando l'applicazione Longitude.

The world population now exceeds seven billion, but in Europe population growth remains very low. And within Europe it is Germany which has one of the lowest growth rates. The relative figures released last year by the Ministry for Internal Affairs were already worrying. Last October, the Federal Statistics Office announced that the population of Germany would fall by at least ten million by 2060. It is evident that the future demographic of the German Federal Republic will be one of the most important subjects for public discussion in the next few years. German society is gradually and inexorably diminishing and ageing. Germany has a birth rate which is among the lowest in the world, as we will see only the Japanese do worse than the Germans.

The question that now needs to be asked is this: Is it possible for an economy which is Europe’s guide and model to have such a low birth rate? What future does the German population have? Is Germany self-destructing, as Thilo Sarrazin wrote, maybe prophetically, in 2010? Today the German Federal Republic is a solid and robust social market economy, but its economic supremacy is not destined to last long if it is denied the possibility of generational change.  

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The Berlin Government, naturally, is trying to launch a strategy to counter a negative and decidedly alarming trend. Last year it set up a government think-tank on demographics at the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the intention of developing ideas and projects and to advise the government on what it could do to improve matters. Then, last October we had the first forum to present the government’s strategy for dealing with demographic change. The slogan was “Jedes Alter zählt”.

Behind the government’s action plan is the conviction that the dramatic demographic trend in Germany can only be reversed by means of real synergy between the State and the people and that they must cooperate with one another.  Anyway, the government still does not seem to have very clear concrete ideas on how to act. It is quite likely that it will be able to be more precise in 2013. On 9 and 10 January 2013, in fact, the second forum on demography, the so-called Berliner demographics Forum will be held. In this forum young academics and representatives of the generation of the eighties year will discuss problems related to demographic change. The thematic spectrum has three keyword concepts: Generations, learning and well-being. At the centre of the debate is the problem of the difficulty for young academics of forming a family due to temporary contracts. According to a recent study by the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforum (DIW) about 40 percent of women working in academia have no children.

The last congress of the CDU, the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, addressed the demographic problem. In the final document of the Hannover congress which took place on 4 and 5 December last, it is recognized that about half of today’s children will probably reach a hundred years, but at the same time there will be fewer births. The intention of the CDU is to improve working conditions in order to ensure competitiveness and innovation, which are the keywords of the German economic and social model, even through the older generation. Older people, in fact, often have superior experience and skills. It has then almost accepted that the demographic trend is, for the moment, unstoppable and so rather than focus on increasing new births it aims to make the existing ruling class more competitive. The challenge that the CDU wants to launch is to try to combine experience with innovation so that Germany remains the country known worldwide for its innovative ideas. All this without neglecting family policy. How this policy should be developed and articulated, considered the costs which already incurring, remains a mystery. The position of the CDU seems more aimed at containment and scaling down the damage that aging could bring in the immediate future rather than at a solution for the medium to long term.

Demographic change is, for Germany, one of the biggest challenges in the future. However, again, the ruling and political classes of the Federal Republic do not really know how to deal with it. It is hoped that the forthcoming political election will bring new ideas. For the time being Germany remains an economic giant with a highly uncertain future.

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