Germany's Demographic Challenge. The Decreasing Birthrate and its causes : The Schrumpfnation or Shrinking Nation

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2014 in the subject English - Discussion and Essays, grade: 1,0, , language: English, abstract: In the first half of the 20th century, Germany lost two World Wars, and with that a notable part of its population. Surely, afterwards, the world should feel lucky about the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. However, the situation, especially after the second war, looked miserable for the country and the countless innocent people. Families fell apart, millions of soldiers and civilians were killed, and the state became divided into four occupation zones. Moreover, unemployment was spread over the whole country. Still, with decades of hard work and the acceptance of mistakes that certain people had made in the past, the nation revitalized its economy. With legal insurances for healthcare, pensions, and long-term care, the state established a social safety net for everyone. In the 1960s and 1970s, the social system seemed to be the perfect one. The economy boomed, and the birthrate was consistently growing. Different from now, the role allocation within families was very conservative; men went to work, and women took care of the children. No one suspected that this way of thinking would drastically change someday. About 40 years later, Connolly, a correspondent of "The Guardian" and Observer's Berlin, points out that "the problem of 'Schrumpfnation Deutschland' (shrinking Germany) will only worsen". Young adults prefer professional careers rather than having children. The social system's base, a strong labor force, disappears slowly with a constantly decreasing birthrate. Additionally, due to the medical and technological improvement, the average life expectancy is growing rapidly. Therefore, in approximately 30 years, the increasing number of people who require pension, healthcare, and long-term care will challenge the employed population with enormous costs. Germany's government started to tackle the problem by rewarding people who have children with the "child allowance." It is doubtful if this approach will solve this problem. Instead, the government, the people, and employers should work together to solve this issue. The goal is to improve the people's desire to have more children. In that way, the labor force will grow and the cost distribution will become easier to deal with. Therefore, if Germany's government and population start to tackle the constant lowering birthrate, the distribution of costs will be better, the insurances for healthcare, pension, and long-term care will remain, and the social system will survive.