and underdeveloped Greece. "In demographic terms, Europa is vanishing," says French Prime Mi nister Jacques Chirac. Gaston Thorn.theformerpri ma minister of Luxembourgh, is equally blunt. "Europe is committing collective suicide," he wams. The Situation may not be quite that grave. It takes threeorfourdecadesfor major demographic effects to work themselves through a population. There is at least a Chance that young working women who have postponedstartingfamilieswill, in the long run, prove almost as fertile as their mothers wäre. But the odds are against any significant improvement. By the mid-1990s all of America's European allies except Turkey will be hard pressed to find the manpowertofullfill their NATO commitments. Asthesparse classes of children born in the 1970s advance through the educational system, schools will dose, and tens of thousands of European teachers will faceunemployment. Bytheturnofthecentury, employers will be confronting a shortage of labor, especiaily for technicai jobs. As the labor pool dries up, thepressureto replace"missing" European workers withThirdWorldimmigrantsmay well prove irresistible. Most worryingof all: Europeangovernmentswill have tofoot the bill for pensionsand medicalcarefor the 25 percent of their popuiationsthat will be over theageofeo,while the numberofworkingtaxpayers continues to shrink. Just 20 yearsago, the prospectofaserious demo graphic shortfall in Europe would have seemed ridiculous. The postwar economy was hding the crest of biggest, iongest expansion ever. As business boomed, so did birthrates. Europeans married a year or so younger than they did in the 1940s and 1950s, and procreated earlier. Infant mortality rates dropped rapidly, and slow but steady population growth seemed assured. The upward trend looked so entrenched that many Europeans, on both the left andright, beganarguingforzero population growth, both as a contribution to stabilizing the exploding World population and as a way of preservingthe ecological baiance in Europe. Newsweek, Dec. 1986 (ca. 580 words) 1. Read the text and write a summary of about 150 words. 2. This text is just an extract from a report. Would you call it agood or typical example of newspaper articles? Give reasons for your answer with examples from the text. 3. On the one hand scientists warn of a growing population (especially in the Third World). On the other hand we are also warned of a decllning population in Europe. Which of these problems would you consider the most important one? Why? 8. C-Klasse (Prof. Mag. Erwin Weixibaumer) Have we been too soft with our children? (23 Kandidaten) D.r SibylEysenck, psychologist and magistrate, on educatlon and violence. Most peopie would agree that there is an increase incrimeinthiscountry, particularlycrimes of violen ce. Sociologists blame the environment, broken homes, unemployment. As a psychologist I would suggest that at least one cause of the increase in crime Is our unwillingness to deal with it when it first arises. Some 30 years ago. Watson, a famous psycholo gist, gave a clear outline of how children should be brought up; his view was simply that behaviour could beshaped by punishingwhatoneconsidered wrong and rewarding what one wanted to encourage. Unfortunateiy, many schoolsoverdid the punishment and children of a nervous, timid disposition became shy, withdrawn individuals.Then neuroses became populär and the pendulum of change swung violently in the opposite direction. "Progressive schools" sprang up with phiiosophers like Bertrand Russell and pediatricians like Dr. Spöck vehemently arguing against all forms of punishment. They pointed to "repressed" children and neurotic adults, insisting that their upbringing was at fault. Progressive schoolsexperimentedwith a new system of freedom for the pupils, allowing them to attend classes only if they wished, never punishing them and concerning themselves predominantly with their psychological well-being. Many flourished, butthe happy-go-lucky high spirited chil dren took advantage of their new found freedom. A System that had rescued the nervous, timid children had clearly put an undue strain on the boisterous, stable ones in expecting them to resist temptation. Since then Dr. Spöck has recanted, claiming that much of the violence of American youngsters may be due to his advice to parents to avoid punishment ataticosts. Aninevitableconcomitantofthislaissezfaire educational Systems has been a very considerable deterioration of discipline. Teachers were afraid to punish and deter in case their pupils suffer de some kind of vague psychological damage. Parents were afraid to enforce home rules, with equal regard for their "sensitive" offspring. So chil dren, beinghealthy, hedonisticorganisms,sawtheir opportunities and stood on their rights; the more they "tested the water", the more they discovered that they couid get away with it. Though this form of upbringing may well befeasible for some children it has proved disastrous for all those others on whom it placed an intolerable bürden of responsibility, sin ce it is surely unfair to expectthem to be law abiding, kind, thoughtfui, unselfish Citizens withoutteaching them what is right and what is wrong. As a magistrate I seethesad results of ourfailure toinculcateaconscienceintoourchitdren.MVyiews are not necessarily those of other magistrates, of course, and I should stress that I cannot help seeing the problem of our increase in crime from the point ofviewofapsychologistwhichis not necessarily the vantage point for other justices.
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