On Wed, Aug 08, 2007 at 07:24:53AM -0700, Radhika, Y. wrote: > Bernhard, on a light note upon being told of the Austrian right wing > politician Haider, whose slogan was Kinder nicht Inder referring to the need
That slogan is still very much alive in Germany. There's a considerable misconception hereabouts about capabilities of immigrant experts, and the attractivity of e.g. Germany especially for top talent. Germany is becoming a low-wage country (at least relatively to its EU neighbours). > for Kids not Indians, I responded that on the contrary it should be Inder > then definitely Kinder! I was joking...immigration from INdia with a large > population may not adversely affected the country of origin but immigration Do not underestimate the importance of high-sigma folks for overall productivity. Brain drain in Germany has been considerable for a couple of decades. > from a country like Ethiopia with a smaller population might be bad for > them. Venezuela is a really good example-huge brain drain of professionals > and in a country of only 20 million that is a problem. Their birth rate is > average but then again it is the poor who have more children. > > Eugen's point about how people in IT are going to manage to keep their jobs It's not just the IT. > and finance their dreams is interesting. Is the scale of the dream something I never thought that being able to afford children is "financing a dream". It's been pretty tough for my generation, but for a low-income young professional it's arguably impossible, especially if single-parent. Social support networks have largely gone away. > to consider? I'm 41 years old, and have a 9-month old kid. My wife is currently working part time. We're lucky to have the in-laws next door, so we do have some hours off, and we're paying almost no rent. We're hardly breaking even, with one young child. We'd like to have another, but not on this salary. I can't imagine how a hair-cutter, or a business clerk manage. If single-parent, they exist below the poverty line. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
