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Vatican Economist: Recession Caused by Low Birthrate, Small Families, Poor Savings Habits

ROME, FEB. 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Bankers are not the cause of the global economic crisis, according to the president of the Institute for the Works of Religion. Rather, the cause is ordinary people who do not "believe in the future" and have few or no children.

"The true cause of the crisis is the decline in the birth rate,” Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, said in an interview on Vatican Television's "Octava Dies."

He noted the Western world's population growth rate is at 0% -- that is, two children per couple -- and this, he said, has led to a profound change in the structure of society.

"Instead of stimulating families and society to again believe in the future and have children […] we have stopped having children and have created a situation, a negative economic context decrease," Gotti Tedeschi observed. "And decrease means greater austerity."

“With the decline in births,” he explained, “there are fewer young people that productively enter the working world. And there are many more elderly people that leave the system of production and become a cost for the collective.

“In practice the fixed costs of this economic and social structure increase. How dramatically they increase depends on how evidently unbalanced the structure of the population is and how much wealth it has. The fixed costs however increase: The costs of health increase and the social costs increase."

When this happens, the economist stated, "taxes can no longer be reduced.”

Empty accounts

Gotti Tedeschi went on to say that another phenomena impacting the economy due to the stagnation of the population is a decline in savings.

"Young people who do not have jobs upset the cycle of accumulation of savings that has gone on for years; families are not formed; often families are not formed that have a certain number of commitments to children and so savings are liquidated," he explained.  ::MORE
 

Holy See at U.N.: Solution to Poverty Found in Population Growth, Not Population Control
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, has told a UN commission that population growth, rather than population control, can help societies overcome poverty. Archbishop Migliore made his remarks on February 8 at a meeting of the Commission for Social Development of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which is considering the theme of social integration.

“Focusing on human relations necessarily calls for an openness to life which is a positive contribution to social and economic development,” said Archbishop Migliore. He continued:

In this light, too often population growth is viewed as the cause of poverty whereas it is a means of overcoming it, for only within the work force can the solution for poverty be found. It is therefore imperative that countries focus their efforts on finding the ways and means for ensuring that people receive the necessary skills, training and education so that human ingenuity can be harnessed in a way which promotes development and human rights. Similarly, where economic growth rates have declined, the answers lie not in trying to close society to others and pushing for population decline but rather in creating a society which is open to and encourages life. Promoting life and the family and finding ways to integrate the contribution of all people will allow societies to realize their full potential and achieve development.

For this reason, the family occupies a central place. The family is the first context in which children learn certain skills, attitudes and virtues which prepare them for the labor force and thus allow them to contribute to economic growth and social development. Education and formation is a long-term investment. It requires that policies promoting the family be based not only on redistribution but above all on justice and efficiency and assume responsibility for the economic and fiscal needs of families. ::MORE
 

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