After decades of limiting population growth, the Chinese government is now urging young families to have more babies. More than three years after lifting its one-child policy, the nation's fertility rate remains stubbornly low, leaving officials scrambling for ideas to spur a baby boom. This move has become increasingly common around the world over the past decade, with industrialized nations rolling out a wide range of incentives intended to boost births. Some countries that have done so have seen their rates climb in recent years—but others haven’t been so lucky.
A half-century ago, a mere eight countries reported total fertility rates (TFRs) below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman. As of 2015, a record 98 countries are below the replacement rate. Low fertility is an issue that many of them, including most of Europe, Japan, and Canada, have been facing for decades. Today, the world’s lowest fertility rates are scattered across Europe and East Asia, in countries such as South Korea, Singapore, Greece, Spain, and Italy. America’s fertility rate remains among the highest in the developed world, but it could be said to be underperforming—because, unlike most other countries, America has shown no sign of a post-GFC revival. The U.S. TFR has declined steadily since 2007, dropping to a multi-decade low of 1.77 in 2017.
The longstanding decline in fertility worldwide has been pushed by powerful economic, social, and cultural forces. In its early stages, the decisive drivers were industrialization, urbanization, and rising affluence. The expansion of universal social insurance programs in the post-World War II decades also weakened one of the oldest incentives for having children: support in old age.
More recently, adverse economic conditions have left many young adults believing they’re unable to afford children. In a 2018 Morning Consult survey for The New York Times, some of the top reasons 20- to 45-year-old Americans gave for not wanting children or having fewer children than they considered ideal were the cost of child care, worries about the economy, and financial insecurity. Couples in China cite sky-high schooling costs, while Italians lament high unemployment and few feasible child care options. In many developed economies, the stagnation of median-family living standards has been compounded by a widening income and asset gap between younger (childbearing age) and older (retired) adults.
Meanwhile, the dramatic transformation in the social role of women and the structure of the family has accelerated the decline. The increase in female educational attainment, the massive entry of women into the labor force, and the rising average age of marriage and childbirth have all played a role in depressing fertility over the past few decades. So too has the widespread diffusion of effective contraception and the legalization of abortion. Declining testosterone levels among men could factor in as well.
What are countries doing about it? Many governments have taken a neoliberal approach by offering direct financial incentives to families with children, such as tax breaks, housing assistance, or discounts on public services. South Korea, Singapore, France, Australia, Canada, Russia, and Poland have all offered “baby bonuses” per child. Other market-oriented pronatalist policies mitigate work-family conflicts in the form of assistance with child care or generous family leave policies. The Czech Republic offers up to 70% of one’s salary during maternity leave. Berlin recently announced that all of its child care centers will be free.
Another approach is to revalorize children and the family. Some programs help individuals find partners or try to keep existing families together. Japan offers funding for local governments that sponsor speed dating or other matchmaking events. In China, several provinces now require couples considering divorce to reminisce about their relationship first, in hopes they can work it out and have children. An enthusiastic variant of this approach is to equate children with patriotism. Ad campaigns in Denmark and Singapore encourage young couples to “do it for their country.” Perhaps the most extreme example is Russia, which declared 2008 “The Year of the Family” and has since dedicated several national holidays to canoodling. Families with seven children or more can receive a special prize, the Order of Parental Glory.
National culture may be one key to the success of such policies. Consider Israel, whose TFR (3.11) vastly outmatches any other developed nation. For other countries, economic health is a major factor. The countries where pronatalist campaigns have worked (including Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Russia) tend to be doing better economically—and perhaps even more importantly, citizens of these countries are more likely to have positive expectations for the future. The best way a country can encourage births is to set up a society in which marriage and family is well-aligned with other goals shared by most adults. Research suggests that policies that facilitate work-family balance see the best results over time.
For American policymakers, fertility is a sort of good news-bad news story. The good news is that the U.S. total fertility rate remains near the highest in the developed world. The bad news is that the good news may be fading fast. The level of fertility is positive, but its rate of change is negative. No developed country, in fact, has experienced such a steady fertility decline since 2008.
This change of direction, some suggest, deserves to put pronatalism much higher on America’s list of policy priorities. And over the last year, there have been some signs of rising interest. Still, fertility remains a very back-burner issue in American politics—certainly by comparison to the attention it is getting in other countries. Why? Because while personally people are affected right away by the choice to have fewer children, collectively the impact may not be felt until our children’s (or even grandchildren’s) lifetimes.
So, as the fertility rate continues to tick downward, American lawmakers will probably take their time in confronting the big question so many other developed nations are already struggling with: Why are young people having fewer children, and what do we want to do about it?
