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Letter From Berlin

All in the Family

By Marc Young

It's no secret that Germany's rapidly ageing society desperately needs to have more children. The government even wants to spark a baby boom. So why don't Germans trust a happy and successful mother of seven to be family minister?

Unless people start following Ursula von der Leyen's example, a geriatric Germany could help give new meaning to the term "Old Europe" in the not so distant future. Unlike most of her fellow Germans, the petite blonde woman has decided to have a big family. A very big family, in fact.

Von der Leyen has seven children -- a number almost unheard of in a country where the population has been steadily shrinking for the past three decades. Perhaps that's why German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- herself childless -- thought von der Leyen would make a great family minister. Who better to encourage Germans to procreate than a woman who has so clearly mastered both career and family?

However, instead of serving as a positive role model for thousands, many Germans are cynically questioning whether it's even possible to be a good mother to seven kids while handling the time-consuming job of government minister. Quite simply put, Germans do not completely trust Ursula von der Leyen.

She must be rich and have an army of nannies, grumbled some. Others wondered aloud whether someone so clearly out of touch with average parents should be trying to set policy for the nation's beleaguered families. When they find out she's also a medical doctor and trained as an economist, it just feeds the widely spread belief that she's not normal. How on earth can she manage all that when average folks have a hard time just keeping their heads above water with a job and one or two kids?

Such negativity and envy can be symptomatic in German society -- especially when confronted by those with constantly cheery and chipper demeanors like von der Leyen. She might be perfectly nice in person, but her public persona comes across as a modern version of a Stepford Wife. Seven kids? Even in America, where the country's burgeoning population continues to fire the housing market and feed suburban sprawl, such familial ambitions are best left to the Mormons.

A recent cover story in the weekly magazine of the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, which examined the widespread discomfort over von der Leyen's apparent ability to have it all, addressed this discomfort. "Why isn't anyone proud of this woman?" asked the article, pointing out that Germany is doomed to become one big old folks home unless more women are able to combine career and family.

Apparently there are some deeply rooted cultural misgivings about the little blonde women cranking out kid after kid. Could it really be that Germany is still haunted by memories of the Nazi-era "Mutterkreuz" medal, which was awarded to especially prodigious mothers making babies for the Fatherland?

The baby gap

There are, of course, other reasons for the country's dearth of offspring and procreation shyness. The weak economy and poor job market certainly play a part, as do changing cultural attitudes about women's role in society. The only thing for certain is that the confluence of such factors are threatening to shrink Europe's largest country precipitously unless Germans dramatically change their breeding habits. By some stark estimates, the current population of 82 million could plummet to 50 million by 2050. That, of course, would be societal and economic catastrophe. But even today the effects of Germany's baby gap are already being felt.

Like many European countries, Germany's birthrate has fallen well below the so-called "replacement rate" of 2.1 children per woman. Among Germans with higher education levels, almost 40 percent of women will not have kids. Germans going the way of the black rhino? Not likely. But the Germany's politicians do appear to have finally woken up to their country's dire demographics. And this week they finally took the first steps needed to defuse the ticking population time bomb.

In quick pincer movement to both sides of Germany's narrowing age pyramid, Chancellor Merkel's coalition government agreed to boost tax breaks for child-care costs while simultaneously deciding to raise the retirement age gradually from 65 to 67. Long overdue, the measures were predictably met with praise from parents and howls from soon-to-be pensioners. But if left alone, they won't amount to more than fingers in the dike of Germany's looming population crisis.

Already there aren't enough people working to fund the country's bloated and generous welfare state. The ageing population and declining number of children will only aggravate that problem.

Germany, it would seem, has precious few options. It could cough up the cash for lavish childcare benefits such as extended paid maternity and paternity leave and increasing the direct child subsidy already paid to German parents. But that's unlikely so long as the German economy continues to suffer from anemic growth and ballooning deficits.

Alternatively, the country could open itself to greater immigration to keep the population steady. With the right policies, Germany could easily cherry-pick the best immigrants much in the same way Canada and Australia now do. In the current political climate, though, that would also seem to be a non-starter. If anything, Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats want to limit rather than increase the number of foreigners coming into the country. And many Germans apparently just don't want hardworking Turks, eastern Europeans or Chinese to prop up their posh pensions allowing them to retire in style.

So that would leave only one course of action: Family Minister von der Leyen clearly has to take matters into her own hands. Adding a few more kids to her already numerous clan at this point surely would be child's play.