Since its publication on January 29, Anna Rotkirch's interview has been among the most read articles in the
Financial Times
.
Using clear and sometimes sharp formulas (“How
sad it is if our way of life consists of remaining alone in front of screens, in apartments, without having sexual relations, without stable partners, without children
”), the Finnish demographer transforms demographic decline no longer a subject of specialists, but of coffee machines.
We need to talk about fertility, she says, and ask ourselves and others why they put off having children or even don't want them.
Otherwise, the declining birth rate - Finland is the second oldest country in the world, tied with Italy and Portugal and behind Japan - will continue to appear as a mystery that costly public policies will fail to solve.
While the drop in births has just reached an unprecedented level in France, it is Le
Figaro
's turn to ask the questions.
LE FIGARO. - Let's start with this surprising fact. In Finland, a country known for encouraging birth rates, the fertility rate is very low. 1.27 children per woman in 2023, i.e. -30% in ten years. What happened ?
Anna Rotkirch. -
Indeed, our country is now one of the oldest countries in the world.
For what ?
Demography can never be explained by a single factor but it may be interesting to go back to the beginning of the 2000s to have the beginnings of an explanation.
At that time, the birth rate…
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