Michael, you write that “low fertility rates are a very serious problem, one receiving plenty of attention from policymakers in a number of European countries.” They are certainly receiving attention. The more interesting question is whether that attention makes any sense. Low fertility rates are only a problem if they are allowed to be. They can actually be a boon, particularly in countries short of space, resources or both. What matters is not the size of a population, but its productivity (that’s why the global disaster predicted by Malthus has not yet come to be). There has been an enormous increase in human productivity since the agrarian days when larger families were the norm. That’s not to deny that the adjustment from higher to lower birthrates can cause some difficulties, particularly within the context of a welfare state, but these are difficulties that ought to be fairly manageable. For example retirement ages could be set that reflect the fact that the seventysomethings of 2011 are in far better shape than their predecessors of a century before. Sadly, the political will to make such changes often appears to be missing.

Instead Europe’s policymakers have preferred to respond to the phenomenon of lower birth rates by encouraging mass immigration, a solution far more destructive than the largely imaginary problem it pretends to resolve.