Why are Europeans having too few children? This question has been approached from a biological as well as a sociological angle in recent years, but there is one missing observation that many Europeans will recognise. A middle- or average-income couple in most European countries worries about having even just one child and how they will afford that child, including suffering the loss of one household salary for at least a period of time. Having two children entails even more concern and even more worries. Almost every European will know at least some couples who are both in good jobs and who would never feel able to afford to have a third child. In fact, only three types of people now have three children or more – the very rich, the poor and recent immigrants. Among immigrants – especially those who have come from third-world countries – any provision for their children paid for by the European welfare state will be better than anything they could have expected in their country of origin. Whereas native Europeans are concerned about competition for school places, housing shortages pushing average house prices up to between five and ten times average salary in their area, and how to afford one child, let alone three or four. It is also possible that, contra Spencer and Portes, some parents may not appreciate an endless amount of ‘diversity’ in their local schools and may want their children to be educated around people from a similar cultural background. This means, especially if those parents are in an inner-city area or suburb, that they are likely to worry about being able to afford a house in the kind of middle-class neighbourhood from which their child would be in the catchment area of a less ‘diverse’ school. If they cannot afford to bring up their children in the way in which they would like, many people will fail to have the number of children they would like.

The question of what your country is going to look like in the future also poses a huge question about the issue of producing, as well as raising, the next generation. When people are optimistic about the future they tend to be optimistic about bringing children into the world. However, if they contemplate a future filled with ethnic or religious fragmentation, they may well think again about whether this is a world they want to bring their children into. If European governments are really so worried about population decline that they would contemplate bringing in higher-reproducing populations from other parts of the world, it would be sensible for them first to work out whether there are policies that could encourage more procreation among their existing populations. In Poland, for instance, the Justice and Law Party has in recent years raised child benefit in order to try to raise the native birth rate and diminish any reliance on immigration. At the very least, governments should examine whether there are things they are currently doing that are making things worse.