The results of the 2010 microcensus published by the Federal Statistical Office on August 3 were noted with great concern by the Humanist Association of Germany. The micro-census shows that the proportion of children in Germany is falling dramatically. The new federal states are particularly badly affected. “As humanists, we believe that the current developments are unacceptable,” said the Executive Board.
According to data from the microcensus, the number of underage children has risen by 2.1 million in recent years to 13.1 million.s decreased. In the old federal states, it fell by ten percent to 11 million children. In the new federal states, the decrease was as high as 29 percent, with around 2.1 million people under the age of 18 still living there. The Executive Committee also took note of the fact that the comparatively sharp decline in the new federal states is partly due to a strong migration of women to the old federal states.
According to numerous studies, the desire of people in Germany to have children and a family is already hindered by various obstacles. The Executive Board explains: “Conditions that prevent people from realizing their desire to have children or a family cannot be tolerated from our perspective and must be overcome.”
According to studies and representative surveys, the desire to have children among women and men in Germany is on average significantly higher than the number of children that are actually born. However, these wishes are offset by the fact that women in Germany only have an average of 1.36 children. According to the latest data from the Federal Statistical Office, the highest number of children have been born in the new federal states in recent years. Saarland and Hamburg currently have the lowest birth rates. People’s actual parental wishes are still a long way from the child-friendly country that the Humanist Association advocates.
“An enlightened society should be able to discuss the causes and sensible ways out of the current situation openly and decisively,” says the Executive Board. The fact that parenthood is not really attractive to young women and men in this country should not be accepted as acceptable by anyone with a sense of social responsibility.
The Executive Committee recognizes that the existing aversion to parenthood has complex causes. The starting point for debates about ways out should primarily be the conditions that people who want to have children see as an obstacle.
The rationally indefensible attempts by representatives of Christian denominations to interpret the causes of the drastic decline in the number of children practically amount to patronizing the young generation in the name of “morality”. The HVD clearly rejects this. “Influencing the state and society with the aim of trying to bring about supposedly ‘moral’ changes based on supernatural ideas, contrary to people’s own wishes, can only be judged as counterproductive in view of the real situation,” says the Presidium. The repeatedly perceptible propaganda against a ‘hedonistic’ sexual morality, non-heterosexual sexuality, the use of contraceptives, abortions, theologically unintended couple relationships or against the philosophies of life of non-religious people that include a liberated sexuality distract from the problems that actually exist – and only support the cultural conditions for avoidable individual suffering on all sides. The problems are not rooted in how people live their sexuality – more or less self-determined – but in how societies shape the conditions of life with children.
In this context, however, the increase in childcare places for children under the age of three mentioned in the microcensus can be seen as a positive development. The association sees this as a single path that should be consistently pursued in the interests of a child-friendly society, so that as many women and men as possible can reconcile their desire to have children with their professional lives in a free and self-determined manner.
The fact that, according to the 2010 microcensus, the small number of children in Germany are not at greater risk of poverty than the average population does not, in turn, hide the fact that the social situation of large sections of the population is poor across all educational levels. In the view of the Presidium, the great distance many people have to bringing children into the world and raising them also makes it clear just how bad the social situation in Germany actually is.
It is therefore also unjustifiable to continue to distort the current situation between the old and new federal states. The current exodus of women from the new federal states is a consequence of the fact that sufficiently attractive living conditions have not been created for these people. The real deficits throughout the country and the underlying problems cannot be covered up forever; ignoring them is dishonest. This should be given the attention it deserves both in the general reflection on existing conditions and in the social discourse on necessary further developments. The Executive Committee of the Humanist Association of Germany therefore advocates focusing on solving these fundamental social problems: “We must ensure a child-friendly world everywhere in Germany.”
