Germany's Population in Crisis

PASSAU, Germany, Aug. 27, 2008 — -- Germany, the biggest country in the European Union with a population of 82.4 million, will be overtaken by Great Britain and France in 50 years.

A new study released by the European Commission demographic agency Eurostat predicts that Germany's population will go down by 14 percent in the year 2060, making it only the third-biggest country in Europe.

According to the study revealed in Luxemburg yesterday, Great Britain will become No. 1 in Europe with a projected 77 million people. Currently some 61 million people live in Great Britain.

No. 2 would be France with approximately 72 million, a growth of 16 percent from its current 62 million, thanks to policies promoting child bearing and good support for working women.

The survey also predicts that one of the most challenging problems in Europe is the aging population. The average age of Europeans now is just over 40; it will be 48 by the year 2060.

There will be some zigzagging in years to come with swells and drops. Europe's population now stands at 495 million and is projected to rise to more than 520 million by 2035, before falling to 505 million by 2060.

Those figures are not necessarily shocking Germans, where low birth rates and the declining population have been dominating headlines for many years.

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Last year the birth rate here plummeted to the lowest level since 1945: Only 680,000 babies were born. To put that in perspective, even during the last year of World War II, some 700,000 births were registered.

"Deaths have outnumbered births in Germany since 1972, and the gap between births and deaths is continuously becoming bigger," explains Steffen Kröhnert, a social scientist at Berlin's Institute for Population and Development.

"The crude birth rate -- defined as births per thousand inhabitants -- has declined in Germany each year. Even after factoring in immigration, the German population is experiencing a negative growth," he says.

The figures have been dropping for the last 30 years, and politicians across the board have largely been ignoring the fact that a demographic revolution is under way.