theMatureMarket.com/Le Figaro: EU: Europe in front of the demographic challenge

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EU: Europe in front of the demographic challenge

To prevent the European Union to be in state of collapse, victim of the inexorable ageing of its population, couples should have more children, employees should work longer, governments should coordinate to support legal immigration and the States should put themselves at the diet. To this end, the European Union envisages 40 million immigrants by 2050.Today, the rate of fruitfulness in the EU (the average number of children by woman) reaches only 1.5 and will hardly move by 2030 (1.6). However, if the Union simply wanted to stabilize its population, apart from any recourse to immigration, it would need a ratio of 2.1 children. In parallel, life expectancy at birth could, by 2050, reach five additional years, involving an increase of 10 % in the public expenditures. "Total finances could become unbearable in many countries", envisages the Commission.

The European population in age to work (15-64 years old) will decrease by 48 million while the rate of dependence will double, to reach 51 %. The corollary of this phenomenon is that the growth rate will mechanically go from 2.4 % over the period to only 1.2 % between 2030 and 2050. Thus, because of that situation, Europe will be reduced "to lean on the profits of productivity as major source of economic growth", estimates Brussels.

In response to these challenges, the European executive recommends the development of a family policy in the Member States, as they were already committed in it in 2002, so as to increase the offer of taking children into care; It wishes to promote an "active ageing", considering that people working in their sixties "must no more be the prerogative of those with high incomes and high diplomas". Brussels also pleads in favour of a "common policy" of immigration "for purposes of employment" and invites the EU25 Member States to enrich their offer of services towards elderly people, to promote the infrastructures, education and research. These investments will have to go together with a continuation of the structural reforms relative to pensions and work of seniors.