[leçon + vocabulaire supplémentaire. Merci à Méropi pour la rapidité... Espérons que skyblog en fera de même..]
VOC additionnel
The replacement rate is being met : le taux de remplacement de la population a été atteint.
pensioners / the elderly: les retraités
health care: dépenses de santé
INTRODUCTION
Europe's population is getting older. The EU is facing demographic changes that will have a major impact on the whole of society. When Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary said “Old Europe”, before the war in Iraq, he wasn't wrong at all. While the superpower across the Atlantic continues to have a steady population growth, Europe is in danger of becoming the shadow of its former self.
We'll see how this will affect us and what we could do about it, with 3 documents.
The first document is a map of Europe, where you can see the different rates of natural increase in 2001 and the major flows of immigration. It was made after a map in our geography book.
The second document is an excerpt of a press article. It was taken from The Age, an Australian newspaper. It describes the consequences of an ageing population
The last document was taken in the same newspaper. It explains how governments react, and what the possible solutions are.
My work is divided into 3 parts, in a first part we'll see that the problem of Europe's ageing population is the result of a low birth rate, and the raising of life expectancy. Then we'll focus on the different solutions that were proposed, and at last, we'll see if immigration is the “magic bullet”.
I- A Europe wide phenomenon
The rate of population growth is slowing across the EU. In the text 2 you can read “ their population fall”. On the map you can see that the natural increase is negative or null in most European countries. Population growth has hit record lows in southern European countries. You can see that the Italian population is falling, Italy is in white, it means that the rate of natural increase is inferior to 1%. The rate of natural increase is the difference between birth rate and death rate. The main reason is that Italy has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world: 1.2 children per woman.
But this is not just Italy's problem, most countries have low birth rates. The EU's fertility rate fell to 1.48 in 2003, below the level needed to replace the population ( 2.1 children per woman) We can wonder why. It is the result of constraints on family choices: difficulties in finding a job, the cost of housing and the lack of family allowances, parental leave.
But the population is getting older also because people live longer than before; it's the raising of the life expectancy. It is written in the text 2: “a rapidly expanding number of retirees”. Older people are enjoying better health, thanks to the progresses of medicine. The number of 80-yeard-old people will grow by 180% by 2050.
Europe's rate of population growth is falling, while the inhabitants are ageing. Who will support the retired population?
II-The different solutions
In the text 2 you can read the expression “a dwindling European workforce struggling”. The word “dwindling” suggests that the working-age population decrease by 6.8 % from 2005 to 2030, while the number of retires will increase. That's why the pension system needs to be reformed, because the people who work won't be able to finance the pensioners.
The first solution is written in the text 3: it is “to work longer before retiring”, so that older people would be productive members of the society. But this measure is very difficult to carry out, because retiring with generous pension benefits ( =financial assistance) early has become the normal thing to do. The other solution is written in the text 3 “ reduce the generosity of pensions”. Any attempt to take away these benefits meets intense resistance.
But the words “work longer” can also mean volunteering and part-time teaching; therefore elderly people wouldn't be left to face social exclusion.
However, the main cause of the crisis is the low fertility rate. You cannot see in the text any measure taken for the fertility rate. Adopting family-friendly reforms, such as child allowances or a parental leave (The period of time during which you are absent from work) have a positive impact on the birth rate and increase female employment. Some European countries have increased fertility rates after adopting this kind of reform. You can see on the map that France and Norway have a rate of natural increase between 1 and 5 %.
III- Immigration, the magic bullet?
Now we are going to see if immigration could solve the problem of the ageing population.
In the text 3, you can read that “immigration could help to mitigate the effects of the falling population”. It is true that without immigration our total population would have already started to decline. It is the case for Germany whose migrants are coming from Eastern Europe and from the Middle East. You can see on the map that Germany is one of the most welcoming countries in Europe, along with Spain, Italy and the UK. Thanks to immigration, the Union's population is set to grow just slightly up until 2025, as it is written in the text 3, before starting to decline.
(458 M in 2005 470 M in 2025 468 M in 2030 )
Immigration is necessary to ensure population growth, 70 % of the population growth in 2001 is due to immigration, often because migrants have higher fertility rates.
But you can read in the text 3 that immigration “is not enough”. It is too easy to think that immigration can solve the problems. Once migrants are settled, then they adopt the way of life of the country they moved to, that is to say they have fewer children and get old. More migrants are then needed to support them in their retirement and so it goes on.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, we can say that the European population is getting older because the birth rate is low, and because people live longer than before. Immigration is necessary to ensure population growth, but it is not a substitute for economics reforms. The aim of these reforms is to change the pension system, to encourage people to work longer, to stimulate the mobility of workers within the EU.
But these reforms do not concerns the causes, such as the low birth rate, they just focus on the symptoms of the ageing problem. One European professor of population studies asked when Europeans will wake up to the consequences of low birth rates. He answered: “not until they are all in their wheelchairs and they suddenly realise that there is no one left to push
