Migration only deepens the demographic crisis

Despite the large wave of immigration in recent years, Europe has seen a decline in the willingness to bear children and increasingly fewer children are born, with a growing proportion of them to parents of immigrant backgrounds. Only ten EU countries saw an uptick in fertility rates between 2010 and 2021, with Hungary showing the biggest improvement. Demographic data clearly show that migration is not the solution to Europe's demographic problems.

Fotó: Mirkó István

In recent weeks, new plans for the resettlement of migrants have emerged from the decision-makers in the European Union, while the negative effects of a failed immigration policy have never been more evident. It is now also clear that migration is not the solution to Europe's demographic problems, as despite the large-scale immigration wave of recent years, the willingness to have children has continued to fall and increasingly more of those born are to parents with immigrant backgrounds.

Young students in the canteen of Ecole Romain Rolland in France in 2015. Since then, children of migrant backgrounds has grown in France. Photo: AFP/Hans Lucas

Europe's share of the world's population is shrinking. While fifty years ago Europeans made up a fifth of the world's population, today that proportion is less than a tenth. Currently, only 5.6 per cent of the world's population lives in the European Union. In 2021, 4.09 million children were born in the European Union, which is half a million fewer than in 2010. The total fertility rate, also a measure of the willingness to have children, is also falling, from an average of 1.57 in 2010 to 1.5 in 2020.

Between 2010 and 2021, the fertility rate increased in only ten EU member states, and among them, the largest improvement of 29 per cent can be observed in Hungary.

All these facts were highlighted by the Maria Kopp Institute for Demographics and Families (KINCS) on the occasion of World Population Day on 11 July.

The Institute reported declines in all countries where fertility levels were at or close to the replacement level of 2 back in 2010. These declines were by 16 per cent in Sweden, by 13 per cent in Ireland and in France by almost 10 per cent, reaching around 1.7-1.8 per cent. Meanwhile, the differences in the fertility rates of the resident and immigrant populations are very significant:

In France, for example, mothers with a migrant background give birth to twice as many children, their fertility rate is 3.4 on average, while that of native French mothers is 1.7.

While there are fewer children in the European Union, one in five newborn babies are born to mothers of foreign origin, three quarters of whom come from outside the EU. KINCS stressed that by 2021, one in six children in the EU will be born to a mother of foreign nationality, a proportion that is rising rapidly, up from one in eight in 2013. In 2021, two thirds of births in Luxembourg will be to a mother of foreign origin, while one in three births in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Cyprus and Malta, one in four in France, Spain and Ireland, and one in five in Italy, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands and Portugal will be to immigrant parents. In Hungary, the figure is just four per cent.

Mass migration is no solution

According to KINCS, it is also clear from these data that

migration does not solve the demographic crisis in the vast majority of countries, but rather deepens it.

The words of the world-renowned Hungarian demographer Pal Demeny now seem to be coming true: "Mass immigration as a solution is an illusion - a temporary remedy that leaves bigger problems in its wake, as it radically changes the social and economic characteristics, ethnic and cultural composition of the host countries' populations."

Instead of the quick fix provided by migration, which causes significant social problems in the long term, Hungary has chosen the hard way: supporting families. It has now proved to be the more successful way from a demographic point of view," KINCS. stated

8 billion people on Earth

In 1989, the United Nations (UN) declared 11 July World Population Day to mark the two-year anniversary of the world's population reaching five billion people in 1987. The growth is shown by the fact that according to UN estimates, the world's population reached eight billion on 15 November last year, an increase of three billion in 35 years. The increase is even more staggering when you consider that in 1950 there were only 2.5 billion people on Earth, a tripling in just over 70 years. The UN projects that the world population will peak at around 10.4 billion in the 2080s and is expected to remain at that level until 2100.

Cover photo: The Gyereket a magasba! (Kids to the sky) event organised by the Harom Kiralyfi, Harom Kiralylany (Three princes, three princesses) movement.