The cure or the disease?

We constantly hear that for Europe to survive it' low birthrates, it must take in even more immigrants. But, isn't it possible that high immigration depresses native birthrates? A reader writes:

The July Scientific American, p 25, (not yet on line, it seems) has an article by Rodger Doyle (rdoyle@adelphia.net) citing economist Richard A. Easterlin of USC. He says that the baby boom resulted from the:

"unprecedented concurrence of three developments; an expansion of the economy, restricted immigration since the mid-1920s, and a relatively small cohort of new job seekers because of low fertility in the late 1920s and 1930s. This combination created unusually good job prospects for young people after World War II, and so feeling more prosperous than their parents, they married earlier and had more children."

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer