Abstract:

This paper is intended to draw attention to the consequences of a declining birth rate, which is present in almost every industrialised country today. In drawing conclusions, one has to consider the difficulty of predicting the birth rate, i.e. the number of live births per 1000 population. This difficulty stems from a complete change in the behavioural pattern, which could be accounted for by a large number of factors. From the time that it came apparent that the birth rate was declining, the countries concerned made enormous efforts to analyse the most important causes in order to structure a population policy