No. 50

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The demographic crisis – our grey-haired Europe

22 January 2025

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RiTo No. 50, 2024

  • Avo-Rein Tereping

    Avo-Rein Tereping

    PhD, Lecturer of Psychology, School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University

Low birth rate, the reason for demographic crisis, is influenced by several factors. This phenomenon can be met in all technologically developed countries of the world.

The demographic deficit (H.-W. Sinn) is not an inevitable by-product of technological development and welfare growth, because, surprisingly, Israel has been left out of this trend. Also, the birth rate varies considerably in different countries. This should prove that a fall in birth rate below the replacement level does not inevitably accompany development, and point to the possibility of dealing with the problem effectively, but it is necessary to recognise that there is a crisis and, as is appropriate in crisis management, to act in a coordinated way. Climate warming is a problem that countries routinely address in a coordinated way. Why cannot the demographic crisis be addressed in the same way?

The article certainly does not present a complete list of causes and remedies for low birth rate, but birth rates, and national family policy that is aimed at creating the conditions for demographic balance, because the economy depends on it, must take precedence over fights between political parties – in the same way as national defence policy.

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