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Like high cholesterol, population decline is a problem, but not in the way you might think..

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  • Wendy Sigle

Abstract

The prospect of population decline in Europe is commonly understood to be an important policy problem. Discussions and research typically focus on the level and the trend of demographic indicators. Can policies be designed which, by targeting the constrained optimisation of rational individuals, cause the indicators to change in the right direction? In this intervention, I argue that like a surrogate marker in medicine, a demographic indicator is not a meaningful endpoint: something that is a direct measure of health or, analogously, a healthy society. Treating population indicators as meaningful endpoints can, as history has shown, lead to great harm. In my view, it is this misconception that makes population decline a truly serious and terrifying problem. So yes, population decline is a problem, but not in the way you, or the people who pose this sort of question, might think.

Suggested Citation

  • Wendy Sigle, 2023. "Like high cholesterol, population decline is a problem, but not in the way you might think..," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 21(1), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:vid:yearbk:v:21:y:2023:i:1:oid:0x003dc065
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    1. Joanna Marczak & Wendy Sigle & Ernestina Coast, 2018. "When the grass is greener: Fertility decisions in a cross-national context," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 72(2), pages 201-216, May.
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