- 著者
-
原 俊彦
- 出版者
- 日本人口学会
- 雑誌
- 人口学研究 (ISSN:03868311)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.42, pp.41-55, 2008-05-31 (Released:2017-09-12)
In Germany,TFR stagnate at below replacement level ranging from 1.3 to 1.6 with some fluctuation for over 30 years.Any arguments and policies to promote births ware tabooed due to nightmare memories about pronatalistic policies,which accompanied racial discrimination under the Nazi regime.For this reason,the basic standpoint for family policy is that the government should be responsible for family according to constitutional prescription but act only in a subsidiary function to marriage and family and avoid any intervention in individual affairs. However, this political attitude began to be revised under the first Schroder SPD government and Renate Schmidt was inaugurated as the federal minister of Families, Seniors,Women and Youth,and it came to emphasize the importance of the family policy which focused on the population problem. This new wave of family policy change was taken over also to a large coalition government with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) born by the federal elections in 2005, and becomes fruitful as the 7th family report (the rough mapping 2005, definite version 2006)and the new policy measures are beginning to be implemented one after another,such as the revision of the promotion law for construction of childcare centers,the introduction of a parents allowance (Elterngeld), "house of many generations" project, etc.. This paper focuses on this recent drastic change of family policy in Germany.We analyze its demographic backgrounds and show the new policy measures and their expected effects. The important topics of this paper are: 1. As for fertility, in 30 years long stagnation of TFR, Germany became far behind Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon countries and other EU members. Remarkable recovery of TFR in neighboring-country France is seemed to be especially a big shock for Germany. 2.The childlessness of Germany is increasing and according to the recent research,one per three German women could be childless at a whole life.In addition,the average number of desired children is decreasing to 1.75 in women and 1.59 in men at age 20-49, clearly lower than reproduction level. 3. The 10th population projection of the Federal Statistics Bureau (medium variant) has presupposed that the decrease in total population would be started in 2012 but has been realized since 2003. In Germany,while the number of birth decreases further because of the post baby boomer parents,the increase in the number of death is also expected by the aging society, a long-term population reduction is not avoidable, like Japan. 4. According to the time scenario for TFR in future by Hans Bertram, the leader of the experts team compiled the 7th family report, TFR could be increased from 1.34 in 2003 to 1.64 by 2017 and return to 1.57 by 2037, and go into a stationary state,if the new policy measures could effectively stop the postponement of first birth timing and shift down about one-year earlier.