Dr. Hogan started withemphasizing that a high level in death rates and a low birth rate doesn’t lead to a high growth rate. Whereas in Europe we are confronted with a decline in the infant mortality rate and the survivorship is going  up, thus old people are living longer and this affects the population structure of Europe. He also remarks that eventually all the worlds’ population will age and this started in the developed countries and in the future Africa and Asia will experience this. For instance, in China the economy is booming and there is a lot of people in the working age, inevitably these people are going to age and this would result in the increase in the old age population in the future. Likewise, he referred to the proximate causes of low fertility such as the decline in desired family size and delays in age of marriage/partnership. The social factors in low fertility is apparent in the delayed transition to adulthood thus they’re not economically independent, and the crucial need for both husband/wife to work. In Europe the increase of the women in the working sector has led to low fertility rate.

Professor Hogan also indicated that the shrink in European population is not a crisis at all, but the real crisis lies in the Economic recession that swept Europe and the world in 2008. He also stated that the high rate of the aging population can be an advantage in terms of reducing child dependency cost, leads to social stability and a decline in crime rate. Professor Hogan ended his lecture by presenting solutions to old age dependency such as increase in age retirement and less use of extreme health measures.