Europe is dying.
It will take awhile. But in the course of a few decades, the Europe that we know and love will be gone. Even today, the world of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is largely something that can only exist in fiction. Any Greeks reading this? How many brothers and sisters do you have? Any?
Below is a table of the birth-death rate for selected countries from the year that just ended:
If the deathrate is higher than the bith rate, you get the idea.
In fact, if the deathrate is even close to the birth rate, you have a problem because, obviously, not al births are healthy children. Some will die. Some will have disabilities that preclude them from reproducing.
These numbers are worse than they look for anyone who is a fan of western civilization. The reason? Because the only reason western Europe's birthrat is even close to the death rate is due to first genration birth of immigrants who are ovewhelmingly Islamic (coming from North Africa or Asia Minor).
A lot of people, mostly Europeans, don't like talking about the I-word (Islam). It's a touchy subject and so they try to pretend Islam is a race rather than a religio-ideology and treat those of us who are concerned with it as racists or bigots or what have you. But Islam is a different culture, whether you like it as a culture or not is subject for a different discussion. But when a native culture isn't reproducing itself and a foreign culture is, then in a human-life span or two, the foreign culture is the native one for better or worse.
But what is the cause of this? Why have Europeans in particular given up on having children?
My opinion is that it is entitlements. Consider this: Why have children? What is the incentive other than biological urge, to have children?
Or more to the point, what is the incentive to have more than one child? Maybe you have a girl and want a boy so you have 2?
In the time before cradle to grave entitlements, people had children for a very specific reason: Because they needed them. They needed them to work the farms. They needed them to help out in the household. They needed them to take care of them when they became old and infirm.
But now? What do we need kids for? Mother government will provide for us. The more urbanized, the lower the population growth. All those government services are so convenient. It takes a village right? And when you get old, you don't need children anymore. No, the government will pay for your medicine, house you if necessary, and provide money to allow you to live pretty well.
But who am I to judge? I'm an only child. And in fact, I'm not trying to judge. I really don't consider one path to be morally superior to the other. So don't shoot the messenger.
Unless the birth rate of European countries changes course, and there's no reason to think it will, the native population of Europe will be decimated and it will only be a matter of how much immigration they are able to bring in that determines how well their country fairs economically. Of course, thena gain, it won't be their country anymore will it?