The New York Times did a fantastic service regarding raising the awareness of the demographic crisis by having a front-page article in its Sunday NY Times Magazine focussing on Europe’s problem with reduced fertility. You will probably have to register, but the link is (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29birth-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=ma).

The author is very articulate in describing many of the reasons for the birth dirth in Europe, and especially the Eastern and Southern parts of Europe. However, he does not recognize that the trend to lower fertility has been going on for two centuries. Napoleon worried about it. So did Teddy Roosevelt. Allan Greenspan told Congress that this has been going on for “at least 150 years.”

We must recognize this new demographic reality. The only reasonable solution is to create a paradigm shift regarding the potential of older workers.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 9:47 pm and is filed under Pensions, Working Longer, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.