Re:Europe's love affair with diesel cars has been a disaster
by hugh4 on Saturday October 17, 2015 @03:25PM
(#10405691)
Iceland is still breeding at a healthy yet sustainable 2.04 births per woman, actually.
Compare to 1.4 in Italy (and I thought they were Catholics!) or 1.38 in Germany.
Actually now I look it up the US is only 1.88 in the last stats that come up, so Iceland is out-breeding the US.
Edit: and while I don't know why I bother researching and typing these things since I inevitably wind up with negative karma the moment I suggest something not directly in line with HN herd opinion, I wish to add that the top-selling car in Iceland is the respectably mid sized Skoda Octavia.
Re:Europe's love affair with diesel cars has been a disaster
by dogma1138 on Saturday October 17, 2015 @03:46PM
(#10405773)
2.04 births is not enough to sustain a healthy population either, it's not irreversible likes some mainland EU countries but it's nothing to boast about.
And it's also quite a sharp decline since the 80's and 70's for Iceland, just like for any other Western country.
But considering that even countries like Iceland that do culturally were having big families, and living in big houses including split houses where the parents and grand-parents live in connected houses also is suffering from a similar fate I might not be as simple as that.
I would say it's a "natural" development of of current life styles, the US managed to delay it maybe because for a long long time and especially after the war the concept of the American dream, a big house, a hot housewife, and 3 kids was in full gear.
Now with the American Dream being less relevant, and much less attainable to many Americans we see a switch to less children, less marriages, and more adults living alone.