The Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Gen­er­a­tions (FRFG) pro­motes and awards two bien­ni­al prizes, in alter­nate years: the Demog­ra­phy Prize and the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize. A total of €10,000 – gen­er­ous­ly endowed by the Stiftung Apfel­baum – is award­ed each year and divid­ed among the win­ning entrants.

 

Aim of the Demography Prize

The Demo­graph­ic prize for young sci­en­tists is an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to improv­ing pub­lic con­scious­ness on demo­graph­ic themes. The com­pe­ti­tion, the announce­ment of the win­ners and the even­tu­al pub­li­ca­tion of the win­ning entries will all serve to expose peo­ple to themes that are impor­tant to the FRFG.
The prize will encour­age dis­cus­sions about demo­graph­ic change, give it a sci­en­tif­ic base, and high­light dif­fer­ent ways today’s deci­sion-mak­ers could deal with it. The FRFG would like to increase the num­bers of dis­ser­ta­tions and the­ses writ­ten on this sub­ject by rais­ing aware­ness of the theme at an ear­ly point in time.

 

1st Demography Prize

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In 2007, the FRFG pro­mot­ed the 1st Demog­ra­phy Prize for Young Sci­en­tists, inspired by the Apfel­baum Foun­da­tion. The Demog­ra­phy Prize 2006/07 was look­ing for sub­mis­sions by young sci­en­tists that addressed the decline of the birth rate in Ger­many. The 1st Demog­ra­phy Prize addressed the top­ic of Increas­ing the Birth rate in Ger­many with­in the frame­work of a Lib­er­al Society.

In the com­ing decades the Ger­man pop­u­la­tion will con­tin­ue to age and shrink. This demo­graph­ic change is unstop­pable. That is why sci­ence is being called upon to name devel­op­ments and to show pol­i­tics, econ­o­my and soci­ety rec­om­men­da­tions for action. How­ev­er, adjust­ing to the change can­not be the only solu­tion. The twin spi­rals of aging and shrink­ing will con­tin­ue to ampli­fy if their root cause, the decrease of the birth rate, is not addressed. The pub­lic debate up to now is char­ac­ter­ized by hys­te­ria on the one side and indif­fer­ence on the other.

Pos­si­ble research ques­tions included:
To what extent is it pos­si­ble to increase the total fer­til­i­ty rate in Ger­many? Up to what extent is it pos­si­ble to derive spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions for action from oth­er devel­oped coun­tries for the rel­e­vant actors in Germany?

 

Win­ning submissions

1st prize: Franziska Höring, Jan Leman­s­ki, Stephan Schütze, Christoph Sper­feldt: “Chang­ing Minds and Politics—Appeals for Sus­tain­able Fam­i­ly Policy”
2nd prize: Wolf­gang Gründi­ger “Dare for more Children—For an Active Birth Pol­i­cy in Ger­many for a Bet­ter Demo­graph­ic Future” (orig­i­nal: “Mehr Kinder wagen”)

3rd prize was shared by:
Inés Brock: “Lack of Sib­lings and how Mul­ti-Chil­dren Fam­i­lies can be Encour­aged” (orig­i­nal: “Geschwis­ter­losigkeit und wie der Mut zur Mehrkinder­fam­i­lie geweckt wer­den kann”)
Anne­lene Wen­gler und Anne-Kristin Kuh­nt: “Chil­dren, Chil­dren, Children—Is a Rise in the Num­ber of Chil­dren in Ger­many Even Pos­si­ble?” (orig­i­nal: „Kinder, Kinder, Kinder“)

Honrable men­tion: Susanne Mey: “The Cri­sis as a Chance for Change” (orig­i­nal: “Die Krise als Chance zur Veränderung”)

The award­ed papers were pub­lished in issue 3/2007 of the Jour­nal for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice.

 

Award cer­e­mo­ny
The awards cer­e­mo­ny took place on Novem­ber 9th, 2007 as part of the sym­po­sium “Ways to More Chil­dren in Ger­many” at the Gov­ern­ment Offices of Sax­ony in Berlin, in coop­er­a­tion with the Insti­tute for Future Stud­ies and Tech­nol­o­gy Assess­ment and the Infora­dio Berlin.