We Need More Babies!

When Ester Blandford was born, 18 months ago, the Swedish state did all it could to ease her way into the world — and encourage her parents to have even more kids. Her mother, Therese, 29, a children's librarian in the small southern town of Nyhamnsläge, took 15 months off work, most of it at 80% pay, to care for the baby, her first child. She now works part-time. Ester's dad, Christian, also 29, a physical therapist, stays home one day a week to help out. He too gets 80% pay from the state for the day spent with his daughter. If Ester is sick, her father or mother can stay at home for up to a total of 120 days a year to look after her — their lost wages are paid by the state. Therese and Christian would like four children and can look forward to increasing child allowances — from €105 per month for Ester to €190 for No. 4 — if they get that far. For Therese, it also helps to know her job will be waiting for her when she returns to the workforce. "I know I can come back to my job and get my old responsibilities back," she says. "I'm not discriminated against because I raise children."

All that costly government support has helped boost Sweden's fertility rate from a paltry 1.5 children per woman in 1999 to 1.71 last year — but that's still not enough to keep the Swedish population from declining without immigration. And Sweden is a success story. In much of Europe, fertility rates have plummeted over the past few decades. Western European women were having an average of 2.4 children each in 1970. But as women pursued higher education, increased their role in the workforce and started having babies later, that figure has fallen to 1.5 last year. In the newer member states of Central and Eastern Europe, the drop-off has been even deeper. That means that the population of the E.U. — plus candidate countries Bulgaria and Romania, expected to join by 2007 — could drop from 482 million today to 454 million by 2050. In the same period, the E.U.'s working age population is projected to drop by 18% while the number of those aged 65 or more will soar by 60%.

Hospital maternity wards already stand empty in parts of Latvia and Slovakia, and schools are closing in eastern Germany for lack of pupils. Germany, in fact, is experiencing such a birth dearth that its population could crash from 82 million to 24 million by the end of the century. If the trend continues, former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok suggested in a report to the European Council earlier this month, within a generation spiraling pension and health costs will bust European state budgets — and cripple the Continent's economic growth rate.

Like Sweden and its Scandinavian neighbors, Britain, Ireland, France and the Netherlands are faring relatively well, with fertility rates above 1.7. Yet nowhere in the European Union does fertility approach 2.1, the level needed to keep the population stable. "A people that doesn't have children, that grows old, is a people without a future," says Tiziano Treu, a former Italian Minister of Labor and Welfare who recently co-authored a bill aimed at boosting Italy's rock-bottom birth rate of 1.29.