The number of births in Germany fell to a post-war low last year
despite government incentives meant to reverse a population
decline in the European Union’s biggest economy, and analysts
blamed a lack of sufficient child care support. A third of all
babies born in Germany, still the EU’s most populous member
state, came from immigrant families, the analysts said, noting
that without them the overall figure would have been much lower.
The preliminary data released by Germany’s Federal Statistics
Office showed 663,000 children were born in 2011, down from
678,000 in 2010. “As in every year since 1972, the number of
people who died was greater than the number of children born. In
2011 the difference amounted to 190,000 people and in 2010 to
181,000,” the office said in a report. Demography experts have
forecast that Germany’s population could shrink to about 50
million by 2050, based on current trends, and say France and
Britain—which now have about 60 million each—could overtake it
later this century. Michaela