According to researchers, countries need a birth rate of 2.1 children per woman to maintain a stable population. However, in Europe, the figures are far below that and could result in “staggering social change,” according to medical journal The Lancet. No country in the EU has a birth rate above 2.1, leading some politicians to fear that the number of young people will begin to drop like a stone.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has now mounted a family-first campaign, backed by the Pope, to try and boost the number of births to half a million annually within a decade. The EU’s statistics and data service, Eurostat, predicts that by 2100, without any interventions, those aged 65 and over will account for 32% of the population, compared to 22% today. Unless European birth rates increase, The Lancet claims, “Reliance on open immigration will become necessary to sustain economic growth.”
