One of the things that forces a rich country to open its doors to immigrants is the need to find people to do work that their own population is unwilling or unable to do. And increasingly in the developed world, one of the jobs that people are unwilling or unable to do is that of a parent. With the exception of Israel, no country in the OECD has a birth rate above replacement rate — 2.1 births per woman. Even countries like France and Hungary, which have spent large sums to encourage people to have bigger families, have not managed to get above this pivotal figure.
It is possible that Hungary’s upward trajectory has not yet peaked and that its generous programme of financial incentives, in which families with more than three children pay little to no income tax, has turned around the country’s long decline in fertility. But given that Hungary spends 5 per cent of its gross domestic product on “pro-childbirth” policies, you would hope that it would have managed to hit a higher birth rate than 1.6. That is no better than the UK, whose government removed child benefit for households earning more than £60,000 and refuses to pay anything additional for households having more than two children.
Some people insist that demographic decline isn’t a problem. There are three arguments I hear all the time whenever I raise this topic.