economics
...s argued that higher incomes would encourage earlier marriages. He also believed that this would lead to more births because of fertility taking place at a younger age and natural fertility taking place over a longer period of time. Today, I think this is still somewhat plausible. However, to some degree higher income people today seem to stay away from marriage and fertility at least until careers have finished and/or financial stability has been accomplished. When Malthus talks about wage rates in relation to population, birth, and mortality rates this is when his writings seem not so convincing. Today, rising wage rates would cause the population to grow as the birth rate increased and the mortality rate fell. However, Malthus argues that the wage rate depends negatively on the size of the population due to supply and demand analysis. He believed that a larger population would yield a larger supply of labor and, if the demand for labor was constant, the equilibrium wage would decrease. Once again, times have changed and peoples lifestyles have changed and this as resulted in a “new world” so to speak. Thus, the Malthusian style today would not be reliable in most cases. All in all, what is interesting and important about the Malthus approach is that for the first time he incorporated a link between the wage rate and fertility. However, the weakness, and ultimate failure of his writings was with the mechanical nature of the relationship between the economic variables (wage rate, labor market) and fertility. With his approach decisions are made about when to marry, and the wage affects that decision. However, once married, there is no explicit decision about fertility. In conclusion, there is no direct effect of the wage on fertility, only an indirect effect due to age at marriage. Nevertheless, according to Malthus, fertility is not looked at as something married couples choose to engage in. However, in today’s world that is exactly what the economic approach to fertility talks about. With that said, the Malthusian position on fertility and economics is not convincing. Its not that Malthus was wrong in his writings so much as it is the change that has taken place in fertility and economics since the 1960’s. 2 The main problem discussed in the article “Europe’s population implosion; Charlemagne” is that the continent of Europe is facing a shrinkage in population. Furthermore, Europe is ageing along with the shrinkage in population which will inevitably affect the aspirations of some Europeans to create a superpower to rival the United States. The big change in Europe's demographic profile will heavily affect the continents future. Fertility rates across Europe are now so low that the continent's population is likely to drop a lot over the next 50 years. Also, life expectancy is said to be increasing. Once you combine Europe’s shrinking population with the rise in life expectancy, the economic and political consequences become very alarming. It is said now that there are currently 35 people of pension able age for every 100 people of working age. By 2050, projections suggest there will be 75 pensioners for every 100 workers. If this continues, then taxes will have to dramatically increase to fund the generous pensions that Europeans have got used to. Th...