[The Italian health
minister described Italy as a “dying country” in February. Germany has spent
heavily on family subsidies but has little to show for
it. Greece’s depression has further stalled its birthrate. And in Denmark,
the birthrate has been below the so-called replacement rate needed to keep a
population from declining — just over two children per woman — since the early
1970s.]
By Danny Hakim
 |
|
Students at a Copenhagen school during a discussion of sex led by a
group seeking to raise Denmark's birth rate.
Credit Sofie
Amalie Klougart for The New York Times
|
COPENHAGEN — Twenty-five Danish 13- and 14-year-olds gathered in a circle to
talk about sex. This was going to be awkward.
One student
surveyed her red nails while a classmate checked his cellphone. When the
discussion turned to masturbation, a girl pointed across the room toward a boy
who was already chortling, and then she started to cover her own giggles by
cupping a hand over her mouth.
“It’s O.K. to
laugh,” said the instructor, 29-year-old Andreas Beck Kronborg, who looked
young enough to be an older brother. “We’re going to talk about stuff that’s
embarrassing.”
Recently, Sex and
Society, a nonprofit group that provides much of Denmark’s sex education,
adjusted its curriculum. The group no longer has a sole emphasis on how to
prevent getting pregnant but now also talks about pregnancy and sex in a more positive light.
It
is all part of a not-so-subtle push in Europe to encourage people to have more
babies. Denmark, like a number of European countries, is growing increasingly
anxious about low birthrates. Those concerns have only been intensified by the
region’s financial and economic crisis, with high unemployment rates among the
young viewed as discouraging potential parents.
The Italian health
minister described Italy as a “dying country” in February. Germany has spent
heavily on family subsidies but has little to show for it.
Greece’s depression has further stalled its birthrate. And in Denmark,
the birthrate has been below the so-called replacement rate needed to keep a
population from declining — just over two children per woman — since the early
1970s.
“For many, many
years, we only talked about safe sex, how to prevent getting pregnant,” said
Marianne Lomholt, the national director of Sex and Society. “Suddenly we just
thought, maybe we should actually also tell them about how to get pregnant.”
The demographic
shift is more pressing in Europe than almost any other major region, save
Japan. There are an estimated 28 Europeans 65 or older for every 100 residents
ages 20 to 64, almost twice the world average, according to the United Nations,
and compared with 24.7 for the United States. By the end of the century, the
United Nations expects the European figure to double.
Such trends will
transform societies, potentially reducing economic growth and increasing stress
on public pension systems and requiring more elder care. Japan already faces existential questions in a country where adult diaper sales are beginning to eclipse
those of baby diapers.
But there is not a
consensus about the impact of demographics. Some see a natural maturing of
developed societies. Others see disaster ahead, because with fewer workers and
more retirees, the active work force faces an increased burden to sustain
social programs.
Productivity gains over time, though, can make
up for such population stresses. Declining birthrates can also lead to labor
shortages, and Germany has faced a gap in skilled labor. But that is hardly an issue now
for much of Europe, which is mired in high unemployment.
“The policy agenda
is much more complicated than people often think,” said Hans Timmer, chief
economist for Europe and Central Asia at the World Bank. “There is this
opportunity for higher per capita income, even if overall income is not growing
as fast as in other countries.”
Recent efforts to
increase birthrates around the world have been creative, if not necessarily
effective. President Vladimir V. Putin declared 2008 the Year of the Family in Russia, and his
political party employed touches like a curving park bench designed to get
couples to slide closer together. There was a double-entendre-laden Mentos commercial in Singapore featuring a
rapper urging residents to do their civic duty with lines like, “I’m a
patriotic husband, you my patriotic wife. Lemme book into ya camp and
manufacture a life.”
In some countries,
the issue can have a broad effect on policy debates.
Zsolt Darvas, a
senior fellow at Bruegel, a research organization based in Brussels, said the
shrinking population issue had contributed to an aversion in Germany to public
spending, particularly at a time of economic uncertainty. The link between the
two topics has been made more than once by Jens Weidmann, president of Germany’s
Bundesbank.
“If you listen to
the German argument — why Germany doesn’t want to have a larger budget deficit
now to stimulate the economy — the argument they are always saying is that
Germany has a very bad demographic outlook so they don’t want to burden future
generations,” Mr. Darvas said.
Anxiety in Danish
society has spawned no shortage of creativity. One priest made headlines for his enthusiastic writings
on sex and eroticism. An entrepreneur created a pro-procreation dating site.
Spies, a Danish
travel company, began a “Do It for Denmark!” promotional campaign last
year aimed at increasing getaway bookings to European capitals. A racy
commercial featured a young Danish couple going to a hotel in Paris to do their
part to lift the nation’s birthrate. “Can sex save Denmark’s future?” the
campaign asked, claiming that Danes had 46 percent more sex on holidays.
“The reaction was
very positive,” said Eva Lundgren, head of marketing at Spies, which is part of
the Thomas Cook group. She added that the frequent Danish media coverage of the
issue made it a natural topic to work with. “There has been for some years now
some anxiousness about how we are going to support the growing elderly mass of
people,” she said.
Christine Antorini, the Danish
education minister, said in a statement that the government was now seeking “a
stronger focus on a broad and positive approach to health and sexuality, where
sexual health covers both joys and risks associated with sexual behavior.”
Perhaps all of the attention is
starting to bear fruit. New statistics show about a thousand more births last
year than the year before, the first increase in the Danish birthrate in four
years.
“I cannot say it is because of
us,” Ms. Lomholt of Sex and Society said, laughing. “We have just started
having a focus on it.”
