Greece, Weddings, and Demography

At Big Lizards:
Reflecting on a Big Fat Greek wedding (which sounds like it was a blast!!!), Dafydd wound up discussing demographics:

One point that struck me is hinted above: The groom, Manos, is 38 years old, and he's just getting married now. The marriage and children culture of Greece, in fact all of Europe, has changed so radically, it's virtually unrecognizable. The wedding feast comprised two types of guest: the very young, from childhood until early twenties; and the old, sixty and more. I don't recall seeing a single "middle-aged" person in his thirties or forties (Manos himself was off with his new bride).

I believe this points out the tragedy of Europe: It is dying. More precisely, it's committing suicide by demography. Mere replacement fertility rate is about 2.1 live births per female, but Greece has 1.36, just over half; thus, each new generation is about half the preceding... a cultural death-spiral if ever we saw one. If they don't reverse this trend very quickly and begin breeding at least as fast as the Moslem immigrants in that country, Greece, cradle of Western civilization, will become a Moslem nation in 20-30 years.

I hate the America Alone imagery of the Mark Steyn book, but it's tough to argue with the facts. My only caveat is that I believe the West will awaken before the terminal phase, while Steyn believes the last throes are already upon them.

I added a comment, which I'll copy here:

I hate the America Alone imagery of the Mark Steyn book, but it's tough to argue with the facts. My only caveat is that I believe the West will awaken before the terminal phase, while Steyn believes the last throes are already upon them.

If I follow what he's written, Steyn believes there's considerable uncertainty over where the terminal phase lies. One problem lies in the fact that the fertility rate can only be dialed upward a certain amount from a given point.

Greece's fertility rate is 1.36. Zero growth, as you mention, is 2.1. In an analogy to nuclear reactors, Greece, and indeed most of Western Europe, is "sub-critical" — the output is decreasing with each successive generation.

Dividing the Greek fertility rate by 2.1, I figure at this rate, each generation that passes represents a 65% decrease in population. In two generations, that's 41.9%, and 27% in three.

Another analogy between reactor physics and population is that the same differential equation (Y' = kY) governs both. Changes in population are proportional to the population size. Dropping the fertility rate to 1.36 for two generations drops the population size to 41.9% of its starting value.

In order to return it to its current level in two generations, the population needs to increase by — not 41.9%, but 139%. You can do this if the each generation is 1.55 times the previous one. This corresponds to a fertility rate of 3.25. (Multiply 1.55 by 2.1 to account for the ZPG fertility rate.)

How are you going to convince the average woman of childbearing age to forego careers and start having 3¼ children on average? And that word "childbearing" is critical. Not all women are available for producing children, once a society realizes it needs to increase population. After menopause, childbearing is out of the question. Much before that point, the odds of conceiving and carrying a child to term have dropped significantly. The number of women who are able to have an additional 1.89 children to make up the deficit is fairly small. Maybe the cut-off is as high as age 30. And, to make matters worse, the lower the age cut-off is, the higher the fertility rate for eligible women has to creep. (How much kY can the government supply?)

Steyn also points out that Western Europe may not have the luxury of time to catch up. If they're competing with Muslims (fertility rates generally above 3 and 4 in most countries), the "terminal phase" is likely to occur when Muslims comprise some fraction of any given country's population, and this fraction need not be a majority. A fraction as low as 20% can be enough if it's sufficiently shrill. He calls it a matter of "last one standing" at the end of the race.