SWEDEN / FINLAND

Researcher: Migration and culture Europe's biggest problem - not low childbirth
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The Finnish mathematician and demographic researcher Kyösti Tarvainen believes that Europe’s debate on low birth rates focuses on the wrong problem. In an interview, he says that declining childbirth is not necessarily a threat to society and that the West should instead discuss the consequences of widespread migration for culture, cohesion and trust.

Tarvainen, who has long studied migration and population development in Europe, believes that economic growth must not be the overriding goal of a society. He points to several Eastern European countries where the population has decreased while the standard of living has continued to rise. According to him, there is therefore no obvious link between population growth and a successful society.

In the interview with Företagande.se, he highlights Japan as an example of a country that has chosen a different path than many European states. For a long time, politics has been much more restrictive about migration. Tarvainen believes that Western decision-makers often use labour shortages and low birth rates as arguments for high immigration, even though the problem is actually about shortages in certain professions.
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He also says he shares the view that a shrinking population is preferable to widespread migration of people without in-demand skills.

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At the same time, Tarvainen expresses great concern about Europe's demographic developments, particularly linked to migration from Muslim countries. He describes how he began to take an interest in the issue about 15 years ago and claims that high birth rates within certain groups and family immigration affect Europe's future population composition.

He also refers to his own analyses and forecasts that, according to him, show that today's development could have far-reaching consequences in the coming decades.
Kyösti Tarvainen
Trust and community

Despite the criticism of the development, Tarvainen talks warmly about Sweden as an innovation nation. He emphasizes Swedish engineers, entrepreneurs and industrial companies as important reasons for the country’s economic success and describes Sweden’s technical knowledge as something unusual in an international perspective. That is precisely why he also believes that demographic change is particularly problematic here. Among other things, he points to increased segregation and believes that cultural consequences often end up in the dark because the standard of living still rises.

During the interview, Tarvainen returns several times with the importance of trust and community in order for a society to function. He believes that the Nordic countries historically built on a strong sense of national affinity and that this has been crucial for both entrepreneurship and economic prosperity. If people identify with family, relatives or religious groups to a greater extent than with the nation, according to him, both the cohesion and respect for common rules risk weakening.

Tarvainen also links societal problems such as thefts, grant fraud and criminality to demographic change and claims that some groups do not feel part of Swedish society. He describes developments in both the UK and Sweden as worrying and says that the crucial issue for the future is not about how many people live in a country, but what kind of society is handed over to the next generation. According to him, economics and prosperity can never be completely separated from culture, trust and social cohesion.