$33,000 to breed in Germany

[jgraz]

Just what the industrialized world needs: more resource-hungry children. Can't economists come up with any solution to an aging population that doesn't involve squirting out more babies?

Best Christmas Gift for Germany: More Children?

Germany's family affairs minister has said she's confident a new government-funded parents' support program will result in Germans having more children and help reverse the steep decline in the nation's birth rate.

The new parental benefit package, which goes into effect with the new year, is aimed at making it easier especially for middle-income, professional women to have children. Many well-educated women find it difficult in Germany to balance work and family, and many are choosing to climb the career ladder instead of changing diapers.

Speaking to the dpa news agency, Family Affairs Minister Ursula von der Leyen, said Germany has one of the world's longest and sharpest decline in the birth rate. The fall in the number of children born could have serious consequences for the nation's health and pension systems as well as its economy. Analysts predict that Germany's current population of 82 million could drop to 50 million by 2050.

"I would be extremely pleased, if (the parental benefit) succeeded in stopping this dramatic decrease," she said.

<snip>

How it works

Under the new child benefit plan which goes into effect on Jan. 1, parents -- either the mother or father -- would be entitled to 67 per cent of their previous income, up to a maximum of 1,800 euros a month ($2,363) while staying at home for up to 14 months. (2,363 x 14 = $33,082)

Von der Leyen, who has seven children (!!!!111), said the new parental benefit represented the "first, but, key component" in helping Germany to address the aging of its population.

But she conceded that it will take some time "before people have the confidence to bring more children into the world again."

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2289881,00.html

[pnorman]

1. Nothing new here.

That was an important part of Hitler's Third Reich.

pnorman

[pitohui]

2. it's hopeless

after i saw a bbc special on hong kong whining that they are not having enough babies in freckin' hong kong then i realized how hopeless it was

everyone wants their own group to keep breeding like flies, to crowd out everybody else who is breeding like flies

i can't even disagree w. germany and italy, i would rather more of them and fewer mormons and fundies squirting out endless battalions of brats, as it stands, secular humanists and the most educated classes will inevitably be out-bred by the religious hysterics and the people with poor impulse control who can't plan a day ahead into the future

i guess this isn't a very good post, because i have no useful answer or hope

we are determined to kill our planet by popping out babies and i don't think anything can stop it because every individual religion or political unit benefits from having "our" kind breed more than "their" kind

[noonwitch]

5. My 93 year old grandfather believes:

All white/paler people will be mutating into darker skin over the next century, due to the depletion of the ozone. Any pale people left will live a totally indoor existence (I have red hair and very pale skin, and do not venture out in the sun for more than a few minutes without 30 SPF as it is now). This is partly his way of accepting that he now has a couple of black great-grandchildren.

My grandpa also has recently concluded that men are the problem with the world right now and it's time for women to take over. When I responded with "So, you'll be supporting Hillary Clinton for president in 2008" he responded with "Well, not that woman". So the women who take over have to be republicans, in his perfect world.

Grandpa has some interesting takes on life. He was a little kid living near the front during WWI (near the Austria/Italy border). He saw and experienced shit that we can't imagine.

[no_hypocrisy]

12. Your Opa lived in Tyrol? n/t

[CrispyQ]

6. I also feel hopeless when I think of population issues.

It's the one issue no one will touch. When other species populations get out of control, we happily adopt policies, many of them heinous & cruel, to get their numbers back in check. But for our own species, we extract ourselves from nature & think we can continue to reproduce without any adverse affect. If we wait for mother nature to get us under control it is going to be so much more harsh than if we had exercised some restraint ourselves.

[Reterr]

25. Yup

We are going to wreck this planet.
Its the one environmental/humanitarian issue no one wants to touch because then you are cold "baby hating" person.
God forbid btw that a woman might believe in population control. Thats just makes you even more of a cold hearted horrible person, because as RW shill Michale Fumento says the planet can accomodate any number of humans and their lives will be super duper happy too :eyes:.

[TlalocW]

3. Ve must breed for zee fatherland

Ve are breeding ze master race!

TlalocW

[Greyhound]

4. "We will not overcome you, we will overwhelm you." - Bustamante

The oldest, tried and true, strategy on earth.

[SoCalDem]

7. If $1800 euros is 67% of their actual wage, it's likely that these women

"could" afford childcare. And what if by the time they are making this much, they are now older and infertile.. The whole thing seems a bit "off" to me.

This is a plan to try and get the "right people" to reproduce. By my calculations, if $1800 is the take-home pay, that woman would be taking home about $2700 a month without a baby.. What that works out to as a gross salary, I have no idea, because I don;t know how their payroll deduction thing works there, but here in the US, that would mean a gross salary somewhere int he realm of....$3500 a month gross..

How many young child-bearing age woman make that much?

[Nikki Stone1]

8. It's competition against the high Muslim birthrate throughout Europe

Racist at the core, of course.

[Xithras]

16. Preserving your culture is NOT racist.

I disagree completely. The German state may be relatively young, but German culture and history goes back thousands of years. There's nothing racist about wanting to preserve your cultural identity and history.

What you have in Europe isn't so much a racial conflict as a cultural one. Many Germans (and French, and Britons, and Italians) want to preserve their native cultures rather than have them supplanted by foreign cultures. The concept of "Arabizing" Europe is just as insulting as the concept of "Americanizing" it is to many. Different cultures have different value systems, and they should all be given a place.

[truebrit71]

24. Or you could just deport the furriners to special holding areas...

...in Eastern Europe where they can be "re-educated"...

This has been tried before by this particular country...in-the-not-too-distant past...

[truebrit71]

21. Absolutely correct. High Muslim and Immigrant Turkish birthrates...

....Why am I not surprised that this idea came from Germany....Didn't they try this once before....???

[treestar]

9. Geez, there are 5 billion people on this planet

If you need some, go find some.

:hippie:

[Ian_rd]

13. Ja really, I'm sure there are millions of people who would love to

emigrate to Germany. Seems like a grand place to me.

Edit: That reads a little sarcastic when I look back, but I'm actually serious. :P

[truebrit71]

22. Been there done that. Twice. Nein Danke.

...plus they all talk funny over there, and have absolutely NO sense of humour about the war... ;-)

[originalpckelly]

10. To breed?

:eyes:

[no_hypocrisy]

11. Hitler gave Mutterschaft medals and stipends to women to

encourage them to breed to provide him with new cannon fodder in the future.

[Ian_rd]

14. Mother-shaft? Hehe. No really, what does that mean?

[no_hypocrisy]

17. Sort of a Mothership thing. Hitler and Goebbels had to come up

with PR for two reasons: they really did need more purebred Germans in their mind to conquer the world once and for all, and German women needed to be put back in the home from where they had left during the Roaring 20s/Weimahr Republic era. You know, Kirche, Kutche, Kinder (Church, Kitchen, Children) to simplify their only roles in traditional German (Third Reich) life. And who wouldn't want welfare for having more children and being the envy of your community due to your fecundity.

[Marrah_G]

15. I have no problem with this....

The world would be a better place if more kids could have parents caring for them in that first crucial year of life. These days it takes 2 incomes and mothers are back at work as soon as the baby is old enough for daycare. Gone are the days of incomes large enough to support a stay at home parent...at least for most of us.

[SoCalDem]

20. That's why they are approaching it incorrectly

Instead of trying to get career women to leave the workforce, they just need to supplement the families who already have a Mom who stays home....but wait..

those families might just be the "wrong' ones :sarcasm:

[nam78_two]

18. "one little, two little, three little"....

They should adopt this-appeared to be working last time I was in Salt Lake city ;).
The Mormon rhyme for young girls:

When I grow up I want to be a mother, And have a family,
One little, two little, three little babies of my own

Of all the jobs, for me I'll choose no other,
We'll have a family,
Four little, five little, six little babies in my home,
And I will love them all day long,
And give them cookies and milk and yellow balloons,
And cuddle them when things go wrong,
And read them stories and sing them pretty tunes,
When I grow up if I can be a mother,
How happy I will be ,
One little, two little, three little babies I can love,

And you will see each sister and each brother,
Who look a lot like me,
Four little, five little, six little blessings from above

Also if they are reeeeeallly serious they could try getting religious leaders to talk to the folks. Last time there were Hindu-Muslim riots in India, I saw that both the right wing Hindu and the Muslim leaders were exhorting their respective followers to have more kids-more little soldiers for religious wars from their perspective. Quite common a practice throughout the world. Kinda sucks for the kids, but hey who is thinking about them.

[NoAmericanTaliban]

19. We have similar incentives in the US, tax code

give everyone with kids a tax break per dependent. People with no children are subsidizing the ones with children. Fundies with kids complain a lot about welfare mothers, but they are getting tax breaks for having kids. What ever happened to personal accountability? Why don't they pay their fair share of taxes? Do they like taking money from other people? :)

[Rosemary2205]

23. France tried to import younger workers

last time I checked that wasn't working out too good.