Germany has become the country with the lowest birth rate on the planet
As Novye Izvestiya writes, in 2010-2015 the birth rate in Germany averaged 8.2 children per thousand inhabitants. By this measure, Germany pushed Japan, the long-time anti-leader of the ranking, to the penultimate place. In Japan, the birth rate averaged 8.4 children per thousand inhabitants over five years, and in Germany – 8.2.
According to the institute's data, the population is growing fastest in Africa. Niger ranks first in birth rate, with 50 children born per thousand inhabitants. Russia, like most developed countries, is in the lower part of the list. According to HWWI and BDO, the birth rate in Russia in 2010-2015 averaged 13.2. In the United States, 10.2 children are born per thousand inhabitants, in France and Great Britain – 12.7, and in Portugal and Italy, the two countries that rank 2nd and 3rd in Europe after Germany – 9.0 and 9.3 respectively.
Germany's record low figures are also confirmed by a four-year-old study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. According to it, in terms of birth rate (8.0), Germany ranked 236th out of 236 countries back in 2011. Of course, Germany has a high standard of living and high life expectancy, which reduces the percentage of women of reproductive age. However, the country also has a very low fertility rate, i.e., the average number of births per woman in a hypothetical generation over her lifetime.
German women on average gave birth to 1.4 children back in the 60s and 70s of the last century. Almost half a century has passed since then, and the rate has not risen. For comparison: in France and Scandinavia it is 2.0, and in Great Britain and the USA it is slightly lower. Demographers believe that this indicator is sufficient for simple population reproduction. As for the German indicator, it means that each new generation of Germans is a third smaller than the previous one.
In Russia, the fertility rate in 2013 was 1.71, which is 31% higher than in 2006. In Europe, Russia surpasses in this indicator, besides Germany, also Austria, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland, where the rate does not exceed 1.6. By 2030, according to HWWI director Henning Vöpel, the number of working-age people aged 20-65 in Germany will decrease from the current 61% to 54%. The statistical agency Destatis expects that by 2060 Germany's population will shrink by about 20 million people.
The main consequence of the low birth rate is major problems for the economy – primarily a shortage of labor. Another consequence, more pleasant for ordinary Germans, is wage growth. Thanks to the low birth rate, German workers could become among the highest paid in the world. True, this circumstance cannot but affect the cost of goods produced in Germany and, consequently, will negatively affect the overall competitiveness of the German economy.
"Without a strong labor market, Germany will not be able to maintain high rates of economic development in the long term," Arno Probst, a member of the German Institute of Public Auditors (IDW), told the London publication Independent. Therefore, Germans will have to compensate for the shortage of labor in the most unpleasant way (for the country's public opinion) – by attracting labor migrants.
Population aging is not least the reason why migration to Germany is currently the highest in the last two decades. In a study by OECD economists, the migration situation in Germany is called a "boom." In 2014, over 400 thousand so-called "permanent migrants" arrived in the country – 1.2 million people entered Germany, and 800 thousand left it. Moreover, all (or most) of this migration can be considered labor migration, because the average age of arrivals is about 30 years.
Many of the newcomers have high professional qualifications. Suffice it to say that the level of migrants with higher education exceeds this indicator among Germans themselves.