This has been true throughout the relatively civilized and economically developed world for at least three millenia (i.e. recorded history).

This was arrested by the establisment of boundaries, most concretely by a concept called: “nation states.”

Wealthier more educated people have ALWAYS had less children.

To the extent that the state provides old-age pensions, they are inextricably linked. As the population lives longer after retirement, more resources are diverted from working people (which class includes potential child-rearers) to pensioners.

One potential work-around is increased participation of grandparents in child-rearing, but this seems impractical in places when children are likely to move away from their childhood homes in search of education or employment. In my (US) experience, though, those women who do manage to make ends meet after a teenage pregnancy invariably do it with the help of their parents.

The point is Fredouil, this ‘with our old’ bit is to miss the point. We are becoming old, we are the ‘old’, as societies here in Europe. Older and wiser? well we will see. Of course, you are in Australia, and with a median age of around 36 you are a bit younger. Many European countries are now on or around median ages of 40 and are heading steadily up to the 50 mark.

“but frankly i do no see any problem with this trend,”

Problem no, but challenge yes. And if we don’t face up to the challenge, then problem.

The structure of our life cycle is changing, now our institutional structure needs to adapt too. The centre of gravity of our working life needs to move upwards, this means starting work later, and, of course, retiring later, significanty later.

I just noticed this from your home country, France:

“A commission of inquiry into the €1,100bn debt mountain built up by France over the past quarter-century will on Wednesday call for a new law to straighten out public finances within five years.Failure to curb deficits would result in a €20bn-a-year shortfall of funds to pay state pensions by the year 2020″.

These are the sort of challenges we will face, and we need to address them.

Also the transition from more-or-less constant population growth to stationary or declining populations means that we will be moving from a relatively high growth environment (2% per annum), to a low growth or even no-growth one.

i prefer ,by far, quality over quantity (provided by our highly educated mothers) and we do not need more humans on this planet.

Thanks Edward, just had a look at his presentation. Interesting - maybe increased understanding of these mechanisms (real or imagined) will be the topic that can bring the progressive left and the traditional right together to do something useful with respect to the European welfare regimes. My guess is we’ll be moving to Scandinavia rather sooner than later. Interesting results about Ireland.

Ok, thanks, I think its fixed. It is a very interesting presentation. Sobotka did his doctoral thesis on this topic, he’s now working with Lutz at IASA.

“I think there should be a link to educational changes too.”

Don’t worry, this will come. This is a very complex problem, and I will be linking to tow or three of the papers looking at different aspects. All I want to highlight here is the timing (age component) effect.

Obviously part of the picture are the ever higher levels of education needed to enter work in a high-value added economy. Female emancipation is also another big part.

“I think the US case might be able to shed a lot of light on some of the cultural/non-biological issues involved in this”

It might do, but this would be in what you might find to be surprising ways. A big part of the statistical picture is adolescent pregnancy (which is also a factor in the relatively higher fertility found in the UK and Ireland, more anglo-factor). The other big part of the US picture is huge immigration from Latin America, and the fact that the relatively less emancipated Latin women tend to have less education, marry younger, and hence have more children. But at some point this situation inverts. The postponement factor will eventually go to work in the US, then, as I am suggesting, they will probably have low fertility for decades.

Another line of enquiry I am working on at the moment, is that increasing life expectancy and fertility are somehow linked. US life expectancy is very low by European standards. I have also put a page on this:

http://www.edwardhugh.net/lifeexpectancy.html

If this is the case, at some stage US longevity should rise and fertility fall. (This is very speculative, but I will at some stage try to explain the mechanism through which this might work). Of course there is the opposite hypothesis that the obesity issue can bring life expectancy down in the US, so your guess is as good as mine here.

“Also, I’m wondering to which extent the break down of industrial age employment patterns and the resulting security, the shift from the secondary to tertiary sector, in which employment is arguably less secure, has resulted in a risk avoidance behavior”

This is the Hans-Peter Blossfeld argument in the paper he presented. One for another post. Don’t be greedy, one point at a time. This conference is something to savour.

I think there should be a link to educational changes too.

Almost every female friend I have with a higher education has her first child after 30. Most people I know (in the Netherlands) work a few years before they want to start a family, and the higher the education the higher the age you start working. - and the number of women with higher education has risen.