This text first appeared in The Wednesday Letter #325 at SK Blueprints. Subscribe for weekly posts.
Why are people having fewer children today than ten, twenty and fifty years ago? The answers differ for rich and poor countries.
Looking at poor countries, in sub-Saharan Africa for example, the total fertility rate (TFR, the average number of children per woman) is still relatively high, at 4.3, but it has fallen steadily from 6.8 in 1980, thanks to improvements in women’s health care and education. When women learn how to read, when they learn the basics of taking care of themselves and of their infants, when they have access to contraception and health services, infant mortality falls rapidly, and the TFR follows it lower. In a 2015 article, I identified female literacy as the primary mover of a falling TFR. Note in the chart the clear decline in TFR when literacy exceeds 90%. Falling TFRs eventually lead to declining dependency ratios, and open a window of opportunity for a demographic dividend. I described this dynamic in Achieving a Demographic Dividend.
The causes of declining TFRs are different in rich countries, where nearly all women are literate and have access to health care and contraception. In this case, the reasons are more complex, and there is considerable debate on why the TFR keeps falling. The replacement rate, the rate at which the size of the population remains stable, is 2.1 children per woman. All rich countries are well below 2.1. The US is at 1.8.
Last week, this Financial Times chart reignited the debate by claiming that the introduction of smartphones impacted birth rates. Not everyone is a believer in this theory. In fact, most demographers who have commented in recent days have rejected it. Although the correlation is undeniable, most view it as coincidental, not causal.
As many of you know, I started focusing on demographic research in the early 2010s and also started the populyst (population + analyst) website in 2012. So, this is a question that I have thought about for a long time. In my view, one reason for a falling TFR in North America, Europe, Japan and other rich countries comes down to this: children in the past were seen as an asset, and now they are seen by some as a liability.
This sounds simplistic until you consider each of the following items.
Mid 1900s, children were seen as an asset:
- Lower urbanization. Children helped their parents on the farm or at a small trade in rural areas.
- Less labor mobility meant that extended families remained in close proximity to each other and assisted in the rearing and supervision of young children.
- Fewer women were working outside the home, and men had greater job security. Financial certainty and a stay-at-home parent made it easier to have children.
- Greater social acceptance for households that were man-woman couples with children. There was a stigma hovering over childless and unmarried people.
- Better job opportunities, better pay and faster promotions resulted from that greater social acceptance.
- Low cost of education and of bringing up children.
Today by contrast, some people (thankfully, not all) see children as a too-high financial liability:
- Greater urbanization. Children do not assist parents in urban jobs. Instead, they require costly childcare while the parents are at work.
- Atomization of the family and higher labor mobility mean that the extended family is no longer available to assist in raising children.
- More women are working outside the home, and men have little job security. Financial uncertainty and no parent at home make it more difficult to have children.
- There is no longer a stigma over the childless or unmarried. Social acceptance has been extended to all groups and lifestyles.
- There is no preferential treatment in hiring for individuals with large families. Every candidate is evaluated on his/her own experience and credentials, with little concern for family status.
- Much higher cost of education and of bringing up children.
In TWL #284, I summed up these factors by arguing that “loss of status explains our demographic decline:”
“A married heterosexual couple with children and a secure job used to be the king and queen at the apex of society seventy or sixty years ago. Society was organized to accommodate this couple, and young people aspired to achieve the same status and level of acceptance. By contrast today, such a couple 1) are just another household who chose to have children and 2) face much higher costs and a lower standard of living than the single and childless. In other words, there used to be privileges and perks extended to people with children, and now there no longer are. Having children is no longer deemed “worth it” by a lot of people, socially, emotionally and financially.”
The University of Pennsylvania’s Professor Jesús Fernández-Villaverde lays out what he calls the “unpleasant arithmetic of the replacement rate.” He says that approximately 15% of US women have no children because they cannot or choose not to, and continues:
“Of the remaining 85, 10 have one child, 60 have two, 10 have three, and 5 have four… Hence, the 100 women in this population have 180 children, for a completed fertility rate of 1.8… To reach [the 2.1 replacement rate], you need a substantial share of women to have three or more children. Two as the “normal” pattern will not get you there. And modern society makes three or more a costly proposition for most families.“
Finally, another thing to keep in mind is that the highest ticket items for a household, the home and the car, can in most cases accommodate a family of four (two parents and two children) but only rarely a family of five or more. Most homes have three bedrooms, and most cars can comfortably seat four people. Having a third child adds another layer of complexity and expense.