Abortion largest cause of death in Europe, says report

There is a marital breakdown and an abortion in Europe almost every 30 seconds, according to a major new report.

Marriage and birth rates are falling dramatically, pensioners now outnumber teenagers, and more and more people are living alone, says the Institute for family policy in a survey of life in the 27 EU countries.

The report, ‘The evolution of the family in Europe in 2008’, was debated in parliament on Wednesday and describes the European birth rate as “critical”.

Urging national governments to set up a ministry for the family, it says, “Europe is now an elderly continent. Almost one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion. The marriage rate fell by 24 per cent between 1980 and 2006. Two out of three households have no children, and nearly 28 per cent of households contain only one person.”

It says the average marriage lasts about 13 years and the number of abortions in the EU every year is put at 1.2 million - equivalent to the population of Slovenia. That makes abortion the largest single cause of death in Europe.

It warns: “Europe is undergoing a demographic winter, and now, Europe is an elderly continent.”

It says almost one million (920,089) fewer babies were born in the 27 EU countries last year than in 1980.

And figures show there were six million more over-65s than under-14s in Europe last year, compared with 36 million more children than pensioners in 1980.

The fact that the number of EU inhabitants has increased at all is largely due to immigration, the report continues, with 84 per cent of population growth in 2000-2007 attributable to arrivals from beyond EU borders.

Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain have the highest rate of marital breakdown: on average two out of three marriages end in divorce in each country. And Germany, the UK, France and Spain between them account for nearly 60 per cent of all EU divorces.

The fall in marriages is described as “dramatic”, with a marriage rate reduction of 24 per cent between 1980 and 2006. Two out of three European households now have no children, the report reveals.

European households are becoming more solitary, too. More than 54 million Europeans live alone, with nearly 28 per cent of European households having only one person. The average EU household now has only 2.4 occupants.

The answer to family decline, says the report, is more family-based policies at national government and EU level: “Although there is growing awareness of the problems faced by families in the EU, there is no organisation which is in charge of family policy, nor does it have a family observatory or a green paper on the family.”

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