The second Berlin Demography Forum, which is held in Berlin from January 9-10, 2013, will center around issues relating to "Generations - Learning - Prosperity". Alongside numerous presentations, the forum will feature a ”young expert panel”, in which young academics will discuss the challenges posed by, opportunities offered by, and possible solutions to demographic change with representatives from the 80+ generation. On Friday, November 30, 2012, the twelve “young experts” got together for an initial discussion in Munich. The "young expert panel" is sponsored by the Robert Bosch Foundation.
The young experts - aged between 24 and 30, all graduates, as yet childless but keen to have children - engaged in lively discussion about the desire to have children, the activity of senior citizens, immigrant integration and finding a balance between family and career. By the end they agreed on two key topics that they wanted to debate with representatives from the 80+ generation at the Berlin Demography Forum: "the desire to have children" and "active senior citizens".
"The desire to have children"
The young experts didn't take long to agree: starting a family is more difficult nowadays than it was in the past. There are several different reasons for this. Due to a "surfeit" of possibilities in one's own future, the desire for self-realization increasingly tends to rank above the immediate desire for children. On top of this is the fact that young people are now required to be mobile, something that they themselves also want. Trips abroad and frequent moves make it difficult to find a long-term partner. Even if the desire for children does take priority, family and career are often perceived as impossible to reconcile with one another. Fixed-term employment contracts are seen as the most significant preventative factor: "fixed-term employment contracts - particularly at universities - are not the exception, but the rule", says one of the young experts.
Moreover, the essential question came up of whether we actually need a society with plenty of children, or whether a shrinking society might be acceptable after all. This is a central aspect of the whole demography debate.
