Has individualism gone too far?

Mrutyuanjai Mishra
27 March 2014, 03:27 PM IST

Demographically speaking, European countries are literally heading for disaster. The number of children born is decreasing year after year. Southern European countries can hardly reproduce themselves, and if it was not for the immigrants, the numbers would dwindle even further. I am thinking of countries like, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc, which are torn by the economic crisis, and where young people are more concerned about getting a livelihood rather than starting a family.

Education comes first, then work, and if all things go well, family will be the next choice.

Let us take the concrete example of Denmark. According to the Global Peace Index Denmark topped the list of the most peaceful countries in the world. Yet, in spite of the serene conditions, with the possibility to let your children sleep outside the home in prams, the willingness to get children has drastically decreased.

2013 turned out to be the year when the least number of children were born in the last 27 years. Politicians are getting worked up in Denmark, and making proposals for raising the fertility rates. Indian politicians do not have to reel under the pressure to make this an issue in election 2014.

Take another fact into account. All parents in Denmark have the right to receive money from the state, irrespective of their income, an amount that equals 10,000 rupees a month, for straight 18 years for each child. Yet, in spite of these economic incentives it is extremely difficult to get young people to prioritize the family.

Who is to blame? Why are the most generous societies on earth not able to reproduce themselves? Europe is turning grey. People are living longer, having fewer children and blaming the Indians and other Asians for over reproducing.

When I lecture, people often ask me when India will introduce the one-child policy like China. And I counter question, how they are going to survive in a few years when the burden of old people keeps increasing. In the near future the number of people in the age group 50 to 65 will be historically high compared to those in the age group 20- 49.

Well, I guess the bottom line is that societies in Scandinavia have become secularized, and even, what is more mind-boggling, that compared to India, these societies are extremely individualized. While waiting at a railway station, I fell into conversation with an old Danish man. He told me that the number of individuals who are singles has reached record high figures. Sweden and Denmark top in the number of people who prefer to live alone. It is all about being individuals and not having to make compromise. Try that in a suburban train, or anywhere in Mumbai. Where will we get apartments for those exploding numbers of singles?

And then, if I may ask this embarrassing question: Isn´t living as singles, not wanting to marry, protracting one's teenage lifestyle until one turns half a century, a contributing factor to the low number of child births registered? Will the Scandinavian societies dare to ask this question, whether there probably is a virtue in being together, in forming families, in sharing thoughts, apartments, sorrows and joys that come along?

Economic incentives alone would not work. And the anti-immigration party is extremely worried that immigrants actually come here to get money by making a lot of babies. So they want to give the money for child support only to those who have a Danish passport.

The European countries in general and the Scandinavian countries in particular have been extremely lucky to have enjoyed consistent economic growth, stability and prosperity. All this can be a matter of the past if two things do not change. One is that more babies are born, who will eventually share the burdens in society, and secondly, that they encourage the integration of immigrants, who eventually take up the work that their own citizens do not want to do.