Soziale Sicherungssysteme und demographische Wechsellagen

In 1972, West Germany confronted a difficult reality: according to the most recent census, its population had begun to decline. By 1990, the birth-rate in newly re-unified Germany averaged only a child and a half per woman. Not only was the rate of reproduction decreasing, it had dropped dramatically since the height of the post-war baby boom (p. 14). In this light, the ‘birth gap’ haunted policy-makers and popular discourse alike for the remainder of the twentieth century, and indeed continues to echo to the present, with new voices from across the globe contributing dire prognostications. According to the World Bank in 1994, traditional pension systems would collapse in states where life expectancy was rising while fertility rates were falling. Without a younger generation of workers to pay in contributions from their salaries, pension funds would wither away, leaving retirees stranded. In view of the rapidly ageing population of many of its member states, the OECD declared in 2002 that ‘if nothing is done quickly to extend working lives, living standards will fall...’. Accordingly, an ‘old age crisis’—or even a ‘pension tsunami’—loomed on the horizon (pp. 11, 17). It was in this context that Thomas Sokoll convened a series of workshops in conjunction with the German Society for Demography, the proceedings of which are gathered in this collection

Baby boom · Birth rate · Census · Context (archaeology · Demographic economics · Economic history · Economics · Fertility · Life expectancy · Pension · Political science · Population · Sociology · Demography · German Economic Analysis & Policies · History · Law · Social and Demographic Issues in Germany · Social Policies and Healthcare Reform