The Institute for Family Policies recently presented to the European Parliament a most remarkable report documenting (and brilliantly illustrating) the massive declines in European marriage rates and birthrates along with terrible upswings in divorce, drug addiction, out-of-wedlock childbirths, and abortions. These developments, combined with the rapid aging of the overall European population, reveal that the continent's "demographic winter" is very much at hand.Among the report's most important highlights?
* Of Europe's population growth in the last seven years, 84% has come from immigration.
* Well over half of that population growth (57%) has been seen in just 3 countries: France, Spain and the United Kingdom.
* Natural population increase in the USA is 12 times higher than in the EU27.
* Spain has immigration 9 times higher than its natural increase.
* Only France and Holland have natural increase rates higher than their immigration figures.
* Poland, Romania and Lithuania are losing population through emigration.
* Population forecasts indicate that Europe will reach a maximum in 2025 and then begin
to decrease. (Without immigration, it would begin to decrease in 2013.) Meanwhile, the United States will continue to grow. The USA has grown 4 times more than the EU since 1994.
* Due to a reduction in the youth population (20 million over 27 years), there are already 6 million more elderly individuals than young people. And that gap is growing wider.
The 66 page report (heavy on visuals, including colorful and strikingly effective graphs and pie charts) has a lot more of alarming information. It can be viewed in this pdf file.
