April 6, 2004
THE OTTO'S GIVE WAY TO THE OTTOMANS:
German population shrinks (Expatica, 5 April 2004)
Germany saw a net drop of 143,000 people in 2003 when the number of deaths rose while the number of births dropped, government officials reported Monday.
The Federal Statistics Office said the number of deaths increased 1.6 percent to 858,000, while births fell 1.3 percent to 715,000 in the year.
Parallel to the fewer births, there was also a drop in the number of marriages, to 383,000 last year, compared with 388,000 in 2002, the office said.The net population drop of 143,000 last year compared with a falloff of around 120,000 in 2002.
The figures come at a time when Germany's governing and opposition parties are wrangling over new legislation on immigration. With the domestic population declining, immigration advocates say that Germany will need to open its doors more to foreigners.
Germany's population at the end of 2002 was counted at 82.537 million, with the statistics office figures showing that the number of foreigners included 7.348 million.
The biggest group among the foreigners were ethnic Turks, at just over 1.9 million, more than triple the next largest group, people from the former Yugoslavia (591,500).
The Hun is always six feet under you. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 6, 2004 7:22 AM
But does he grasp up from the grave?
Posted by: jim hamlen at April 6, 2004 9:56 AMI have friends in the Czech Republic where the birth rate is substantially lower than it is in Germany. Children are almost a curiosity in the urban areas. The decline in native born workers is being offset by immigrants from such places as the Ukraine and Russia. Of a dozen couples that I know well, only one has two children, five have one, and six have no children, and apparently no intention of doing so.
On a visit to Czeske Krumlowe, a medevial city in southwestern Czech, it was fascinating to see the middle class Czechs at their leisure, drinking and dining, while Russian laborers installed a sewer system.
The importation of eastern Eurpoean labor and the higher birthrate of the indigenous Gypsy population will have a profound demographic impact on the nation in a very short period of time.
Of course things are different in the rural, and especially the eastern (Moravia), portions of the country. There the old times (Communism) are not forgotten. However, the birth rate is just as low.
Posted by: Earl Sutherland at April 6, 2004 11:56 AM