Europe’s Population at a Turning Point – A New Policy Approach

Wolfgang Lutz, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Brian C. O'Neill, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Sergei Scherbov, University of Groningen

Europe has just entered a critical new phase of its demographic evolution. Around the year 2000, it began generating “negative momentum:” a built-in tendency to decline due to shrinking cohorts of young people caused by three decades of low fertility. Currently the effect of this momentum on future population is small, but each additional decade that fertility remains at its present low level will imply a further decline in the EU of 25 to 40 million people, absent offsetting effects from immigration or rising life expectancy. Governments in Europe are beginning to consider a range of policy options to address the perceived negative implications of population decline and rapid aging. Social policies and labor laws aimed at halting the further increase in the mean age of childbearing have substantial scope for affecting future demographic trends in the EU, and would have health benefits as well.