As Europe ages, effect ripples across society

PIAZZE, Italy — On a sultry Saturday night in this quiet Tuscan town, it's the elderly, not teenagers, who are checking out the scene along the main strip.

Dubbed "cane brigades" by residents, these squads of gray-haired men and women routinely hang out and gossip — and not just on Saturday night.

Piazze represents a challenging reality facing Italy and other European countries whose fertility rates have plummeted in the past few decades. Much of Europe is growing older, creating a ripple effect of social and economic problems.

Fewer young people means there will be fewer workers to fund the pensions of longer-living retirees, putting a severe strain on Europe's economies.

The demographic time bomb is placing pressure on governments to reform their cherished pension plans, no easy task in the midst of a global downturn.

Hundreds of towns and cities like it throughout Europe face the very real possibility of economic decline and dramatic demographic changes.

"Governments cannot sit back and wait," said Stijn Hoorens, a researcher at RAND Europe, an independent policy think tank in Cambridge, England. "If their very low fertility rates sustain, and no measures are taken, the public sector may eventually go bankrupt."

Italy has the oldest population in Europe — some 20 percent of people are age 65 and older — with Germany running a close second.

America's population also is aging. Some 12 percent of the U.S. population is age 65 and older, a figure that will grow to 20 percent within the next 20 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The number of those age 85 and older is projected to more than triple by 2050 to 19 million.

At the same time, studies show that birthrates in Italy and many other parts of Europe, notably Spain and Eastern Europe, have dropped below 1.3 births per woman, a "warning sign" rate that's so low it would cause a country's population to halve in 45 years.

The figure of 2.1 is widely considered to be the "replacement rate," the average number of births per woman necessary to retain a country's current population level. The fertility rate in the United States is 2.1.

A study by RAND Europe ominously predicts that there will be 30 million fewer Europeans of working age by 2050.

"At the same time, retirement will be lasting decades as the number of people in their 80s and 90s increases dramatically," it said.

Put another way, the ratio of workers to pensioners in Europe is expected to change roughly from 4:1 to 2:1 by 2050.

Immigration can ease labor woes, but it will not reverse the trend of an aging population.

Tensions between European nationals and Muslim minorities have grown in recent years as a fear of extreme Islam has driven the enactment of stricter anti-immigration policies in several countries. In general, a deepening distrust has further divided mainstream populations and isolated Muslim communities.

"The sheer number of migrants needed to offset the trends would be unprecedented in Europe's history," Hoorens said. "And given the current sociopolitical climate in Europe, it is highly unlikely that this will be considered a feasible option."

Some experts have gloomily surmised that it won't be long before Europe is transformed, a place devoid of ethnic Greeks and Italians but teeming with Muslim immigrants who will forever alter traditional European national cultures.

Venice has shed more than half its population since 1950; Latvia has lost 13 percent of its population since 1989.

"Unless it corrects course within the next five to 10 years, Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: the grand buildings will still be standing but the people who built them will be gone," Canadian conservative Mark Steyn wrote in his best-selling book "America Alone."

The causes behind declining fertility rates are manifold, but the most obvious cause was the introduction of mass contraception in the mid-20th century.

Other factors including the rise in the number of older women having their first child.

One-child families have become the norm in kid-friendly Italy, where more women are putting off having children until after age 40, mostly so they can achieve financial stability.