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Article: Living, and dying, in a barren land: Eastern Germany.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- April 23, 1994
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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SINCE the demise of communism, a demographic cataclysm has overtaken most former communist countries. Birth rates have collapsed and death rates have risen sharply, most strikingly among teenagers and young adults. The ferocity of both trends suggests people in the grip of some unprecedented trauma that cannot be put down solely to the change in living standards that has taken place.
Nowhere are these trends more pronounced than in eastern Germany. In the May issue of Europe-Asia Studies, Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, remarks: "Eastern Germany's adults appear to have come as close to a temporary suspension of ...