The spiritual concerns aside, though, the main threats to Europe are economic. Alongside birthrate, the other operative factor in the economic equation is lifespan. People everywhere are living longer than ever, and lifespan is continuing to increase beyond what was once considered a natural limit. Policy makers fear that, taken together, these trends forecast a perfect demographic storm. According to a paper by Jonathan Grant and Stijn Hoorens of the Rand Europe research group: “Demographers and economists foresee that 30 million Europeans of working age will ‘disappear’ by 2050. At the same time, retirement will be lasting decades as the number of people in their 80s and 90s increases dramatically.” The crisis, they argue, will come from a “triple whammy of increasing demand on the welfare state and health-care systems, with a decline in tax contributions from an ever-smaller work force.” That is to say, there won’t be enough workers to pay for the pensions of all those long-living retirees. What’s more, there will be a smaller working-age population compared with other parts of the world; the U.S. Census Bureau’s International Database projects that in 2025, 42 percent of the people living in India will be 24 or younger, while only 22 percent of Spain’s population will be in that age group. This, in the wording of a Demographic Fitness Survey by the Adecco Institute, a London-based research group, will result in a “war for talent.” And the troubles for Europe are magnified by other factors in the existing welfare states of many of its countries. Europeans are used to early retirement — according to the Adecco survey, only 60 percent of men in France between the ages of 50 and 64 are still working.

Then there is the matter of what kind of society “lowest low” will bring. How will the predominance of one- and two-child families affect family cohesion, sibling relationships, care for elderly parents? Imagine a society in which family reunions consist of three people, in which nearly all of a child’s relatives are in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. Laviano’s empty streets echo with something strange and seemingly new. As the social scientists Billari, Kohler and Ortega put it, Europe is entering “an uncharted territory in demographic history.”