Comment by jonathanstrange
12 days ago
They're clearly not being replaced, as a look at the numbers indicates, but what is true for most European countries is that if the low birth rates stay far below 2.1 their populations will continue to decline and their economies will shrink, if they don't manage to offset that trend with controlled yearly immigration.
To clarify: Although it follows mathematically with constantly low birth rate, dying out is, of course, not a likely consequence. It seems likely that at some point when the economies shrink poverty would hit so seriously that the birth rates would start increasing again, as they seem to be negatively correlated with standards of living. However, we're talking about levels of shrinkage that feel like a collapse of the economy and social security/pension systems.
>controlled yearly immigration.
IMO the problem lies with this statement. For people like OP any "control" of immigration is going to be responded with the same criticisms. Because if you take a stance hard enough, any of these controls can be spun into anti-immigration.
By "controlled" I had something else in mind than what you seem to insinuate, namely that the yearly immigration rate must roughly match the desired long-term population stability. For a reasonable immigration system, you need to welcome the immigrants you want to get, provide a long-term perspective, and offer some incentives for them to come. Unlike the US, European countries have often failed at that basic job, or at least their immigration politics have been erratic and without constancy. Phrases like "a stance hard enough" are a symptom of the problem.
The biggest failure is that part of "provide a perspective" - not even a long-term. Immigrants were accepted and... that was all, probably expecting the invisible hand, or Santa, to magically sort stuff up. And then acting surprised when immigrants who were denied the right to work looked into, ahem, "alternate" income sources, or original cultural behaviors got carried over. One could even get the idea that all these failures were by design to keep a handy scapegoat for their own failures (or misdeeds). Thus the anger of the alt-truth crowd not only with said immigrants but also with the system which failed everybody (except the system people).
They are clearly being replaced.
>offset that trend with controlled yearly immigration
That's just another way of saying "replace themselves."