tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/birth-rates-4574/articles
Birth rates – The Conversation
2024-01-21T08:55:26Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219155
2024-01-21T08:55:26Z
2024-01-21T08:55:26Z
South Africa’s ageing population comes with new challenges. How best to adapt to them
<p><em>Young people – under the age of 15 – currently make up 29% of South Africa’s population. But this will soon change: the aged portion of the population is forecast to rise from 2030, bringing many challenges. Lauren Johnston, an economics and political economy expert, recently published a <a href="https://saiia.org.za/research/poor-old-brics-demographic-trendsand-policy-challenges/">paper</a> on the subject. We asked her to put the developments into perspective.</em></p>
<h2>What is South Africa’s current population profile?</h2>
<p>South Africa is “young” among the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), but “old” by African standards. For example, seniors make up 5.9% of South Africa’s population and children 28.6%. This <a href="https://saiia.org.za/research/poor-old-brics-demographic-trendsand-policy-challenges/">compares</a> with Russia’s 15.8% seniors and 17.2% children, and China’s 13.7% seniors and 17.7% children. </p>
<p>The sub-Saharan average is 3.0% for seniors and 41.8% for children. </p>
<h2>What’s up ahead?</h2>
<p>South Africa faces no fears of a substantially diminished working-age population, unlike a number of high-income countries. Nonetheless, population structure estimates suggest that it will be home to a rising number of seniors. </p>
<p><strong>Projected population structure, South Africa</strong></p>
<p>In general, the increase in population share of seniors is driven by falling rates of mortality and birth, leading to fewer younger people relative to elders. In South Africa’s case, a falling fertility rate <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN">from over six births per woman in 1960 to just over two today</a> is a key driver. </p>
<p>An ageing population is statistically defined as a population with 7% or more of people aged 65 and over. </p>
<p>In 2022, seniors made up 5.9% of South Africa’s population. So, it is not yet home to an ageing population. But the <a href="https://population.un.org/wpp/">United Nations</a> forecasts it will join the “population ageing” club as early as 2030. By around 2060 it will be home to an “aged” population – with seniors accounting for 14% of the population. </p>
<h2>What unique challenges lie ahead?</h2>
<p>In general, an ageing population puts added pressure on the working-age population. Each worker has to be more productive, just to maintain total output. Fiscal resources also come under pressure because there are fewer people of working age – net contributors to the economy. There are also more seniors requiring resources for their health and welfare. </p>
<p>For developing countries this can be especially precarious because budgets are often under strain. So are the resources needed for pursuing basic national development. Moreover, a trend of population ageing arising in developing countries is relatively new – just a few decades old. </p>
<h2>How prepared is South Africa for the challenges?</h2>
<p>One challenge for “young” South Africa is that the slower pace of demographic change reduces imminent and more obvious demographic change pressure. The very steady increase in the share of elders alongside pressing broader socioeconomic challenges gives the government little incentive to prioritise social or economic ageing-related issues on its policy agenda.</p>
<p>The array of socioeconomic challenges, including <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/1_Stock/Events_Institutional/2020/womens_charter_2020/docs/19-02-2021/20210212_Womens_Charter_Review_KZN_19th_of_Feb_afternoon_Session_Final.pdf">poverty</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-police-are-losing-the-war-on-crime-heres-how-they-need-to-rethink-their-approach-218048">crime</a>, entrenched <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-cant-crack-the-inequality-curse-why-and-what-can-be-done-213132">inequality</a> and <a href="https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/news-insights/shedding-the-load-power-shortages-widen-divides-in-south-africa/">energy access</a>, means that the need to respond to the demographic transition is less of an immediate priority. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/millions-of-young-south-africans-are-jobless-study-finds-that-giving-them-soft-skills-like-networking-helps-their-prospects-202969">Millions of young South Africans are jobless: study finds that giving them 'soft' skills like networking helps their prospects</a>
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<p>As a result, very few older South Africans benefit from aged care services, and then only the very frail, with inconsistent reach across provinces. Moreover, according to an October 2023 University of Cape Town study, there is little support for older persons who have high care needs and are at home, <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2023-10-02-funding-elder-care-in-south-africa-new-report#:%7E:text=Based%20on%20estimates%2C%20it%20is,older%20persons%20who%20need%20it.">or for active older persons</a>. Most elders do not have access to services that support their needs, but also fear rising healthcare costs, owing to the rising incidence of non-communicable diseases. These include strokes, cancer and diabetes.</p>
<p>Overall the basic national social welfare net is inadequate. For example, retirees living off less than 16% of their pre-retirement salaries are among those with the highest risk of <a href="https://theconversation.com/retired-women-in-south-africa-carry-a-huge-burden-of-poverty-177379">living in poverty</a>. This group is three times more at risk of poverty than any other group in South Africa. Black female widows are most at risk.</p>
<p>While the economic value of support to older persons has grown over time, the increase has been insufficient to <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2023-10-02-funding-elder-care-in-south-africa-new-report#:%7E:text=Based%20on%20estimates%2C%20it%20is,older%20persons%20who%20need%20it.">meet the needs of this growing population</a>. Statistics South Africa estimates that population ageing alone is already adding around 0.3% to <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=13445">expected health-related expenditures annually</a>. These trends suggest that without change, South Africa’s seniors will become even less adequately served with time.</p>
<h2>What needs to be done to prepare better?</h2>
<p>South Africa has committed to establishing frameworks for healthy ageing based on the <a href="https://www.who.int/initiatives/decade-of-healthy-ageing#:%7E:text=The%20United%20Nations%20Decade%20of,communities%20in%20which%20they%20live.">United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing from 2020 to 2030</a>. The agenda has four core areas of priority – age-friendly environments, combating ageism, integrated care, and long-term care. To realise these goals, difficult political decisions would need to be made around taxation and redistribution, as more revenue is required to ensure basic dignity for South African seniors. </p>
<p>Guided by the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/2006-013_olderpersons.pdf">Older Persons Act</a> and the <a href="https://social.desa.un.org/issues/ageing/madrid-plan-of-action-and-its-implementation-main/madrid-plan-of-action-and-its">Madrid Plan of Action on Ageing</a>, the Department of Social Development in partnership with other departments, and the <a href="https://saopf.org.za/">South African Older Persons Forum</a> should further implement <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/media-advisories/government-activities/minister-lindiwe-zulu-officially-opens-2022-active">South Africa’s Active Ageing Programme</a> to empower senior citizens to stay physically and intellectually active, to continue to enjoying healthy, purposeful lives. This should help reduce pressure on more intensive care sectors and needs. </p>
<p>As explained in my <a href="https://saiia.org.za/research/poor-old-brics-demographic-trendsand-policy-challenges/">paper</a>, South Africa should take advantage of the Brics grouping’s new population structure and <a href="https://brics2023.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Jhb-II-Declaration-24-August-2023-%201.pdf">development cooperation agenda</a>. That way, state officials, civil society and entrepreneurs may be better positioned to take advantage of opportunities to reduce healthcare and aged care costs. </p>
<p>To direct sustain the economy as the population ages, South Africa needs to ensure that the economy is robust enough to accommodate a worsening dependency burden. For example, young people must be proportionately empowered to drive productivity growth and innovation. That way, the increasing costs associated with the ageing population could be accommodated while <a href="https://www.uneca.org/stories/eca-discusses-african-middle-income-countries%E2%80%99-challenges-and-solutions-to-accelerate">continuing to drive national development</a>. </p>
<p>Digitisation trends and the Brics population and development agenda may, as examples, also foster opportunities for education and training among not only young South Africans, but all working-age people. This will help raise productivity potential per worker and <a href="https://saiia.org.za/research/poor-old-brics-demographic-trendsand-policy-challenges/">extend productive working lifespans</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/drc-has-one-of-the-fastest-growing-populations-in-the-world-why-this-isnt-good-news-209420">DRC has one of the fastest growing populations in the world – why this isn't good news</a>
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<p>South African policy makers and entrepreneurs should also be cognisant of how population ageing affects <a href="https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/OP-351-AGDP-Johnston-FINAL-WEB.pdf">not only other Brics economies</a>, but also patterns of trade and investment. For example, over the coming decades, population decline in middle-income China, and the rapid decline of its working-age population, is likely to push China away from labour-intensive industries, and <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/222235/1/GLO-DP-0593.pdf">towards capital-intensive industries and sectors</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, population ageing at home and abroad will shift economic demography-weighted opportunities and challenges at home. The more responsive South Africa can be to these changes, the better off will the nation be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219155/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Johnston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In general, an ageing population puts added pressure on the working-age population to be more productive – just to maintain total output – amid growing fiscal constraints.
Lauren Johnston, Associate Professor, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217661
2024-01-08T13:35:39Z
2024-01-08T13:35:39Z
South Korea’s gender imbalance is bad news for men − outnumbering women, many face bleak marriage prospects
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563900/original/file-20231206-21-smw7n5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5573%2C3699&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In South Korea, there are nor enough young Korean women for young Korean men to marry.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/airport-business-man-royalty-free-image/166973187?phrase=south+korea+men+together&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">RUNSTUDIO/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Korea’s bachelor time bomb is about to really go off. Following a historic 30-year-long imbalance in the male-to-female sex ratio at birth, young men far outnumber young women in the country. As a result, some 700,000 to 800,000 “extra” South Korean boys born since the mid-1980s may not be able to find South Korean girls to marry.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jAfhO2YAAAAJ&hl=en">demographer</a> who over the past four decades has conducted extensive research on East Asian populations, I know that this increased number of South Korean boys will have huge impacts throughout South Korean society. Coincidentally, similar trends are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17450128.2011.630428">playing out in China</a>, Taiwan and India. </p>
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<h2>The reasons</h2>
<p>In most countries, more boys are born than girls – around 105 to 107 boys per 100 girls. That sex ratio at birth (SRB) is a near constant. The gender imbalance is likely an evolutionary adaptation to the biological fact that females live longer than males. At every year of life, men have higher death rates than women. Hence an SRB of between 105 and 107 boys <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/population-and-society/5D47EB8139ED72FD59F7379F7D41B4FB">allows for there to be roughly equal numbers of men and women </a> when the groups reach childbearing ages.</p>
<p>The SRB in the United States in 1950 was 105 and was still 105 in 2021; in fact, it has been stable in the U.S. for as long as SRB data has been gathered. In contrast, in South Korea the SRB was at the normal range from 1950 to around 1980, but increased to 110 in 1985 and to 115 in 1990.</p>
<p>After fluctuating a bit at elevated levels through the 1990s and early 2000s, it returned to the biologically normal range by 2010. In 2022, South Korea’s SRB was 105 – well within the normal level. But by then, the seeds for today’s imbalance of marriage-age South Koreans was set.</p>
<h2>A preference for sons</h2>
<p>There are several reasons why South Korea’s SRB was out of balance for 30 years.</p>
<p>South Korea experienced a rapid fertility decline in a 20- to 30-year period beginning in the 1960s. From six children per woman in 1960, fertility fell to four children in 1972, then to two children in 1984. By 2022, South Korea’s fertility rate had dropped to 0.82 – <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-korea-has-the-lowest-fertility-rate-in-the-world-and-that-doesnt-bode-well-for-its-economy-207107">the lowest fertility rate in the world</a> and far below the rate of 2.1 needed to replace the population.</p>
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<p>Yet, South Korea’s long-held <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2584733">cultural preference for sons</a> did not shift as quickly as childbearing declined. Having at least one son was a strong desire influencing fertility preferences in South Korea, especially up through the early years of the 21st century. </p>
<p>And the declining fertility rate posed a problem. When women have many children, the probability that at least one will be a boy is high. With only two children, the probability that neither will be a son is around 25%, and when women have only one child, it is less than 50%.</p>
<p>In order to ensure that families would continue to have boys, many South Koreans turned to readily available techniques to identify the gender of the fetus, such as screening in the early stages of pregnancy. Abortion, which is legal and socially acceptable in South Korea, was then often used to allow families to select the sex of their child. </p>
<h2>Sex by the numbers</h2>
<p>In South Korea, beginning in around 1980 and lasting up to around 2010 or so, many more extra boys were born than girls. When these extra boys reach adulthood and start looking for South Korean girls to marry, many will be unsuccessful.</p>
<p>The extra boys born in the 1980s and 1990s are now of marriage age, and many will be looking to marry and start a family. Many more will be reaching marriage age in the next two decades.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man kisses pregnant wife's belly." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563902/original/file-20231206-21-k1wz8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563902/original/file-20231206-21-k1wz8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563902/original/file-20231206-21-k1wz8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563902/original/file-20231206-21-k1wz8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563902/original/file-20231206-21-k1wz8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563902/original/file-20231206-21-k1wz8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563902/original/file-20231206-21-k1wz8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A deeply rooted cultural preference for sons was still influential in South Korea up through the early years of this century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/asian-man-kissing-pregnant-wifes-belly-royalty-free-image/174522589?phrase=south+korea+abortion&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">Greg Samborski via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>I have calculated that owing to the unbalanced SRBs in South Korea between 1980 and 2010, approximately 700,000 to 800,000 extra boys were born.</p>
<p>Already this is having an effect in a society where over the centuries virtually everyone was expected to marry, and where marriage was nearly universal. Recent <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/south-koreans-losing-interest-in-marriage-report-finds-630642">research by Statistics Korea</a> showed that in 2023, over 36% of South Koreans between the ages of 19 and 34 intended to get married; this is a decline from over 56% in 2012.</p>
<h2>Foreign brides and ‘bachelor ghettos’</h2>
<p>The immigration of foreign-born women might help address the imbalance. Research by demographers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X18756640">Guy Abel and Nayoung Heo</a> has shown that financial assistance from the South Korean government is already supporting the immigration to South Korea of Korean women from northeastern China and of foreign women from some less wealthy countries, such as Vietnam, the Philippines and some Eastern European countries. </p>
<p>If the extra bachelors do not marry immigrant brides, they will have no alternative but to develop their own lives and livelihoods. Some might settle in “bachelor ghettos” in Seoul and in South Korea’s other big cities of Busan and Daegu, where commercial sex outlets are more prevalent. Such “ghettos” have already been <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2005/7/20/gender-imbalance-threatens-china">observed in other Asian cities</a> where men outnumber women, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in China.</p>
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<img alt="Bridegroom flashes victory sign." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563903/original/file-20231206-27-z2krp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563903/original/file-20231206-27-z2krp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563903/original/file-20231206-27-z2krp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563903/original/file-20231206-27-z2krp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563903/original/file-20231206-27-z2krp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563903/original/file-20231206-27-z2krp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563903/original/file-20231206-27-z2krp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">While the desire for sons has been relaxed, the social issues, especially regarding the marriage market, remain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/bridegroom-showing-victory-sign-royalty-free-image/903472740?phrase=south+korea+wedding&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">RUNSTUDIO/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The consequences for South Korean society of the higher than biologically normal SRBs is a problem of the country’s own making. South Korea’s high fertility of the mid-20th century was holding the country back economically. Its program to bring down a fertility rate of nearly six children per woman was hugely successful. But its very success has been problematic. </p>
<p>The speed of South Korea’s fertility transition meant that the evolution to a more modern familial normative structure – that is, with about two children per family and with less preference given to boys – lagged behind. Today, the SRB imbalances appear to be <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38362474">a thing of the past</a>. Women in South Korea have greater access to education and employment, and there is less pressure for men to be sole wage earners. Together with the South Korean government’s efforts to reduce sex selection beginning in the late 1980s, the premium for boys over girls has dropped. </p>
<p>Yet despite the relaxed desire for sons, long-term social issues related to gender imbalance, especially regarding the marriage market, will remain in South Korea for decades to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dudley L. Poston Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Following a 30-year boy-to-girl birth rate imbalance, up to 800,000 ‘extra’ men born since the mid-1980s will be unable to find a South Korean woman to marry. That has big demographic consequences.
Dudley L. Poston Jr., Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207107
2023-06-27T12:23:02Z
2023-06-27T12:23:02Z
South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world – and that doesn’t bode well for its economy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534163/original/file-20230626-5418-k0jzlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C7842%2C4032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An aging population, a tired economy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-elderly-lady-rests-near-her-street-stall-as-pedestrians-news-photo/1251981087?adppopup=true">Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around <a href="https://www.livescience.com/worlds-population-could-plummet-to-six-billion-by-the-end-of-the-century-new-study-suggests">the world</a>, nations are looking at the <a href="https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2023/06/20/what-does-a-shrinking-population-mean-for-china">prospect of shrinking</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/02/14/aging-boomers-more-older-americans/">aging populations</a> – but none more so than <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/22/s-korea-breaks-record-for-worlds-lowest-fertility-rate-again">South Korea</a>.</p>
<p>Over the last 60 years, South Korea has undergone the most rapid fertility decline in recorded human history. In 1960, the nation’s total fertility rate – the number of children, on average, that a woman has during her reproductive years – stood at just under six children per woman. In 2022, that figure was 0.78. South Korea is the only country in the world to register a fertility rate of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1163341684/south-korea-fertility-rate">less than one child per woman</a>, although others – <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1155943055/ukraine-low-birth-rate-russia-war">Ukraine</a>, <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-low-fertility-rate-population-decline-by-yi-fuxian-2023-02">China</a> and <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/births-in-spain-drop-to-lowest-level-on-record/2614667">Spain</a> – are close.</p>
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<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jAfhO2YAAAAJ&hl=en">a demographer</a> who over the past four decades has conducted extensive research on Asian populations, I know that this prolonged and steep decline will have huge impacts on South Korea. It may <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230102000602">slow down economic growth</a>, contributing to a shift that will see the country <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/29/south-korea-s-demographic-crisis-is-challenging-its-national-story-pub-84820">end up less rich and with a smaller population</a>.</p>
<h2>Older, poorer, more dependent</h2>
<p>Countries need a total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman to replace their population, when the effects of immigration and emigration aren’t considered. And South Korea’s fertility rate has been consistently below that number since 1984, when it dropped to 1.93, from 2.17 the year before.</p>
<p>What makes the South Korean fertility rate decline more astonishing is the relatively short period in which it has occurred.</p>
<p>Back in 1800, the U.S. total fertility rate was <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033027/fertility-rate-us-1800-2020/">well over 6.0</a>. But it took the U.S. around 170 years to consistently drop below the replacement level. Moreover, in the little over 60 years in which South Korea’s fertility rate fell from 6.0 to 0.8, the U.S. saw a more gradual decline from 3.0 to 1.7.</p>
<p>Fertility decline can have a positive effect in certain circumstances, via something demographers refer to as “<a href="https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-attaining-the-demographic-dividend/">the demographic dividend</a>.” This dividend refers to accelerated increases in a country’s economy that follow a decline in birth rates and subsequent changes in its age composition that result in more working-age people and fewer dependent young children and elderly people.</p>
<p>And that is what happened in South Korea – a decline in fertility helped convert South Korea from a very poor country <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/miracle-maturity-growth-korean-economy">to a very rich one</a>.</p>
<h2>Behind the economic miracle</h2>
<p>South Korea’s fertility decline began in the early 1960s when the government adopted an <a href="https://countrystudies.us/south-korea/47.htm">economic planning program</a> and a <a href="https://doi.org//10.3349/ymj.1971.12.1.55">population and family planning program</a>.</p>
<p>By that time, South Korea was languishing, having seen its <a href="https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/journals/ijoks/v5i1/f_0013337_10833.pdf">economy and society destroyed</a> by the Korean War of 1950 to 1953. Indeed by the late-1950s, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. In 1961, its annual per capita income <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198796954.003.0006">was only about US$82</a>. </p>
<p>But dramatic increases in economic growth began in 1962, when the South Korean government introduced a five-year economic development plan. </p>
<p>Crucially, the government also introduced a population planning program in a bid to bring down the nation’s fertility rate. This included a goal of getting <a href="https://doi.org//10.3349/ymj.1971.12.1.55">45% of married couples</a> to use contraception – until then, very few Koreans used contraception.</p>
<p>This further contributed to the fertility reduction, as many couples realized that having fewer children would often lead to improvements in family living standards. </p>
<p>Both the economic and family planning programs were instrumental in moving South Korea from one with a high fertility rate to one with a low fertility rate.</p>
<p>As a result, the country’s dependent population – the young and the elderly – grew smaller in relation to its working-age population.</p>
<p>The demographic change kick-started economic growth that continued well into the mid-1990s. Increases in productivity, combined with an increasing labor force and a gradual reduction of unemployment, produced average annual growth rates in gross domestic product <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/KOR/south-korea/gnp-gross-national-product">of between 6% and 10% for many years</a>.</p>
<p>South Korea today is <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true">one of the richest countries</a>
in the world with a <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=KR">per capita income of $35,000</a>.</p>
<h2>Losing people every year</h2>
<p>Much of this transformation of South Korea from a poor country to a rich country has been due to the demographic dividend realized during the country’s fertility decline. But the demographic dividend only works in the short term. Long-term fertility declines are often <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2022/12/the-long-term-decline-in-fertility-and-what-it-means-for-state-budgets">disastrous for a nation’s economy</a>. </p>
<p>With an extremely low fertility rate of 0.78, South Korea is losing population each year and experiencing more deaths than births. The once-vibrant nation is on the way to becoming a country with lots of elderly people and fewer workers.</p>
<p>The Korean Statistical Office reported recently that the <a href="https://kosis.kr/statHtml/statHtml.do?orgId=101&tblId=DT_1B8000F&language=en">country lost population</a> in the past three years: It was down by 32,611 people in 2020, 57,118 in 2021 and 123,800 in 2022.</p>
<p>If this trend continues, and if the country doesn’t welcome millions of immigrants, South Korea’s present population of 51 million <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2023/06/602_335593.html">will drop to under 38 million</a> in the next four or five decades.</p>
<p>And a growing proportion of the society will be over the age of 65.</p>
<p>South Korea’s population aged 65 and over comprised under 7% of the population in 2000. Today, <a href="https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/korea-south/#people-and-society">nearly 17% of South Koreans</a> are older people.</p>
<p>The older people population is projected to be 20% of the country by 2025 and could reach an unprecedented and astoundingly high 46% in 2067. South Korea’s working-age population will then be smaller in size than its population of people over the age of 65.</p>
<p>In a bid to avert a demographic nightmare, the South Korean government is <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/south-korea-families-770-month-183500253.html">providing financial incentives</a> for couples to have children and is boosting the monthly allowance already in place for parents. President Yoon Suk Yeol has also <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/03/28/national/politics/Korea-birth-rate-Yoon-Suk-Yeol/20230328184849297.html">established a new government team</a> to establish policies to increase the birth rate.</p>
<p>But to date, programs to increase the low fertility rate have had little effect. Since 2006, the South Korean government has already <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/asia/south-korea-worlds-lowest-fertility-rate-intl-hnk-dst/index.html">spent over $200 billion</a> in programs to increase the birth rate, with virtually no impact.</p>
<h2>Opening the trapdoor</h2>
<p>The South Korean fertility rate has not increased in the past 16 years. Rather, it has continued to decrease. This is due to what demographers refer to as the “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23025482">low-fertility trap</a>.” The principle, set forth by demographers in the early 2000s, states that once a country’s fertility rate drops below 1.5 or 1.4, it is difficult – if not impossible – to increase it significantly. </p>
<p>South Korea, along with many other countries – including France, Australia and Russia – have developed policies to encourage fertility rate increases, but with little to no success. </p>
<p>The only real way for South Korea to turn this around would be to rely heavily on immigration.</p>
<p>Migrants are <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2020/06/19/blog-weo-chapter4-migration-to-advanced-economies-can-raise-growth">typically young and productive</a> and usually have more children than the native-born population. But South Korea has a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/16/upshot/comparing-immigration-policies-across-countries.html">very restrictive immigration policy</a> with no path for immigrants to become citizens or permanent residents unless they marry South Koreans.</p>
<p>Indeed, the foreign-born population in 2022 was just over 1.6 million, which is around <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220414000692">3.1% of the population</a>. In contrast, the U.S. has always relied on immigration to bolster its working population, with foreign-born residents now <a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/immigrants-in-the-united-states">comprising over 14%</a> of the population.</p>
<p>For immigration to offset South Korea’s declining fertility rate, the number of foreign workers would likely need to rise almost tenfold.</p>
<p>Without that, South Korea’s demographic destiny will have the nation continuing to lose population every year and becoming one of the oldest – if not the oldest – country in the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dudley L. Poston Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
South Korea’s fertility rate fell below the level needed to sustain a population in the mid-1980s – and it never recovered. It is now below one child per woman during her reproductive years.
Dudley L. Poston Jr., Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197270
2023-01-12T13:22:17Z
2023-01-12T13:22:17Z
US birth rates are at record lows – even though the number of kids most Americans say they want has held steady
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504125/original/file-20230111-17-rb1th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=605%2C401%2C4607%2C3396&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More one-and-done families influence the overall birth rate.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/close-up-of-multi-ethnic-parents-kissing-son-royalty-free-image/764783339">Maskot via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Birth rates are falling in the U.S. After the highs of the Baby Boom in the mid-20th century and the lows of the Baby Bust in the 1970s, birth rates were relatively stable for nearly 50 years. But during the Great Recession, from 2007-2009, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-17.pdf">birth rates declined sharply</a> – and they’ve kept falling. In 2007, average birth rates were right around 2 children per woman. By 2021, levels had dropped more than 20%, close to the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/birth-rates-science-coronavirus-pandemic-health-d51571bda4aa02eafdd42265912f1202">lowest level in a century</a>. Why? </p>
<p>Is this decline because, as some suggest, young people <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/adoption-highest-forms-love-pope-francis-says-rcna11065">aren’t interested in having children</a>? Or are people facing increasing barriers to becoming parents?</p>
<p><iframe id="kHhvl" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kHhvl/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yEWD08QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">We are demographers</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2c_rF_IAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">who study</a> how people make plans for having kids and whether they are able to carry out those intentions.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12535">In a recent study</a>, we analyzed how changes in childbearing goals may have contributed to recent declines in birth rates in the United States. Our analysis found that most young people still plan to become parents but are delaying childbearing.</p>
<h2>Digging into the demographic data</h2>
<p>We were interested in whether people have changed their plans for childbearing over the past few decades. And we knew from other research that the way people think about having children changes as they get older and their circumstances change. Some people initially think they’ll have children, then gradually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-018-0739-7">change their views over time</a>, perhaps because they don’t meet the right partner or because they work in demanding fields. Others don’t expect to have children at one point but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12402">later find themselves desiring to have children</a> or, sometimes, unexpectedly pregnant. </p>
<p>So we needed to analyze both changes over time – comparing young people now to those in the past – and changes across the life course – comparing a group of people at different ages. No single data set contains enough information to make both of those comparisons, so we combined information from multiple surveys. </p>
<p>Since the 1970s, the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/index.htm">National Surveys of Family Growth</a>, a federal survey run by the National Centers for Health Statistics, have been asking people about their childbearing goals and behaviors. The survey doesn’t collect data from the same people over time, but it provides a snapshot of the U.S. population about every five years.</p>
<p>Using multiple rounds of the survey, we are able to track what’s happening, on average, among people born around the same time – what demographers call a “cohort” – as they pass through their childbearing years.</p>
<p>For this study, we looked at 13 cohorts of women and 10 cohorts of men born between the 1960s and the 2000s. We followed these cohorts to track whether members intended to have any children and the average number of children they intended, starting at age 15 and going up to the most recent data collected through 2019.</p>
<p><iframe id="ZJ7Hk" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ZJ7Hk/7/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>We found remarkable consistency in childbearing goals across cohorts. For example, if we look at teenage girls in the 1980s – the cohort born in 1965-69 – they planned to have 2.2 children on average. Among the same age group in the early 21st century – the cohort born in 1995-1999 – girls intended to have 2.1 children on average. Slightly more young people plan to have no children now than 30 years ago, but still, the vast majority of U.S. young adults plan to have kids: about 88% of teenage girls and 89% of teenage boys.</p>
<p>We also found that as they themselves get older, people plan to have fewer children – but not by much. This pattern was also pretty consistent across cohorts. Among those born in 1975-79, for instance, men and women when they were age 20-24 planned to have an average of 2.3 and 2.5 children, respectively. These averages fell slightly, to 2.1 children for men and 2.2 children for women, by the time respondents were 35-39. Still, overwhelmingly, most Americans plan to have children, and the average intended number of children is right around 2. </p>
<p>So, if childbearing goals haven’t changed much, why are birth rates declining?</p>
<h2>What keeps people from their target family size?</h2>
<p>Our study can’t directly address why birth rates are going down, but we can propose some explanations based on other research. </p>
<p>In part, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.06.024">this decline is good news</a>. There are fewer unintended births than there were 30 years ago, a decrease linked to increasing use of effective contraceptive methods like IUDs and implants and improved insurance coverage from the Affordable Care Act.</p>
<p>Compared with earlier eras, people today start having their children later. These delays also contribute to declining birth rates: Because people start later, they have less time to meet their childbearing goals before they reach biological or social age limits for having kids. As people wait longer to start having children, they are also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.0.0073">more likely to change their minds about parenting</a>.</p>
<p>But why are people getting a later start on having kids? We hypothesize that Americans see parenthood as harder to manage than they might have in the past. </p>
<p>Although the U.S. economy overall <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/article/great-recession-great-recovery.htm">recovered after the Great Recession</a>, many young people, in particular, feel <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9548-1">uncertain about their ability to achieve</a> some of the things they see as necessary for having children – including a good job, a stable relationship and safe, affordable housing. </p>
<p>At the same time, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-012-0146-4">costs of raising children</a> – from child care and housing to <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_330.10.asp">college education</a> – are rising. And parents may feel more pressure to live up to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soy107">high-intensive parenting standards</a> and prepare their children for an <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520278103/motherload">uncertain world</a>. </p>
<p>And while our data doesn’t cover the last three years, the COVID-19 pandemic may have increased feelings of instability by exposing the lack of support for American parents.</p>
<p>For many parents and would-be parents, the “right time” to have a child, or have another child, may feel increasingly out of reach – no matter their ideal family size.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Hayford receives funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Aging. She is affiliated with the American Sociological Association and the Population Association of America. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Benjamin Guzzo receives funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She is affiliated with the Population Association of America, the American Sociological Association, the National Council on Family Relations, and the Council on Contemporary Families. </span></em></p>
Childbearing goals have remained remarkably consistent over the decades. What has changed is when people start their families and how many kids they end up having.
Sarah Hayford, Professor of Sociology; Director, Institute for Population Research, The Ohio State University
Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173151
2021-12-06T19:06:20Z
2021-12-06T19:06:20Z
Half of women over 35 who want a child don’t end up having one, or have fewer than they planned
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435731/original/file-20211205-15-1adyinb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/tBtuxtLvAZs">Matthew Henry/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At age 35, one in four Australian women and one in three men were hoping to have a child or more children in the future. But by age 49, about half report they haven’t yet had the number of children they hoped for.</p>
<p>That’s according to the <a href="https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/hilda">Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia</a> (HILDA) 2021 report, released today. Over 20 years, HILDA has tracked more than 17,500 people in 9,500 households.</p>
<p>While some of the 49-year-old men may still father a child later in life, this is unlikely to be the case for women at that age. </p>
<p>In Australia and other high-income countries, there has been a long-term downward trend in the fertility rate: the average number of births per woman. In 2019, Australia hit a record-low of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-24/fertility-rates-in-australia-at-all-time-low-cause-for-concern/100367258">1.66 babies per woman</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-want-more-children-than-they-have-so-are-we-in-the-midst-of-a-demographic-crisis-81547">Australians want more children than they have, so are we in the midst of a demographic crisis?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Low fertility rates are partly a result of more people <a href="https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2020-07/apo-nid306881.pdf">not having children</a>, either by choice or through circumstance. About a quarter of Australian women in their reproductive years are likely <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/bb8db737e2af84b8ca2571780015701e/1e8c8e4887c33955ca2570ec000a9fe5!OpenDocument">to never have children</a>. </p>
<h2>Why are women having fewer children?</h2>
<p>There are many reasons why people have no or fewer children than planned towards the end of their reproductive years. </p>
<p>One contributing factor is the average age when women have their first child has increased in the last few decades and is now almost <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/mothers-babies/australias-mothers-babies-data-visualisations/contents/demographics-of-mothers-and-babies/maternal-age">30 years</a>. This is in part explained by women spending more time in education and the workforce than they <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3529638/">used to</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/balancing-work-and-fertility-isnt-easy-but-reproductive-leave-can-help-171497">Balancing work and fertility isn't easy – but reproductive leave can help</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Another reason is some women don’t find a <a href="https://rbej.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12958-018-0389-z">suitable partner</a> or have a partner who is unwilling or “not ready” to commit to parenthood. </p>
<p>It’s also possible <a href="https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(12)02343-6/fulltext">limited knowledge</a> about the factors affecting fertility leads to missed opportunities to have the number of children originally planned.</p>
<p>But whatever the reason, having children later in life will inevitably affect the number of children people ultimately have. While most women who try for a baby will succeed, some won’t, and some will have fewer children than they had planned to have. </p>
<h2>Fertility declines with age – so does IVF success</h2>
<p>The risk of not achieving pregnancy increases as a woman gets older because the number and quality of her eggs decline. </p>
<p>By 40, a woman’s fertility is about half the level it was when she was <a href="https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(16)62849-2/fulltext">30</a>. And sperm quality decreases with age too, starting at around <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12801554/">age 45</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man leans against a bike while looking at his phone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435745/original/file-20211206-25-sh7k7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435745/original/file-20211206-25-sh7k7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435745/original/file-20211206-25-sh7k7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435745/original/file-20211206-25-sh7k7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435745/original/file-20211206-25-sh7k7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435745/original/file-20211206-25-sh7k7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435745/original/file-20211206-25-sh7k7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men’s sperm quality also declines with age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/zn2aUVfbUrk">Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Increasingly, people who struggle to conceive turn to assisted reproductive technology (ART) such as in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). </p>
<p>There was a 27% increase in the number of treatment cycles in the 2020–2021 financial year compared to the previous year, according to <a href="https://www.varta.org.au/resources/annual-reports">data released today</a> by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA). </p>
<p>But unfortunately, IVF is not a good back-up plan for age-related infertility. </p>
<p>On behalf of VARTA, researchers at the University of New South Wales tracked thousands of women who started IVF in Victoria in 2016 to see what had happened to them by June 30, 2020. The graph below shows the proportions of women who had a baby after one, two or three stimulated IVF cycles, including the transfer of all fresh and frozen embryos that resulted from these. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435762/original/file-20211206-19-mq97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435762/original/file-20211206-19-mq97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435762/original/file-20211206-19-mq97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435762/original/file-20211206-19-mq97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435762/original/file-20211206-19-mq97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435762/original/file-20211206-19-mq97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435762/original/file-20211206-19-mq97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women who started IVF when they were 30 years old had a 48% chance of a baby after one stimulated cycle, a 62% chance after two cycles and a 67% chance after three cycles. </p>
<p>But for a woman who started IVF at age 40, there was only a 13% chance of a baby after one stimulated cycle, a 21% chance after two cycles and a 25% chance after three cycles.</p>
<h2>Fertility options for over-35s</h2>
<p>So, what are the options for women in their mid-30s who want to have a child or more children? </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.varta.org.au/resources/annual-reports">Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority data</a> reveal some women aren’t waiting to find a partner. Over four years, there has been a 48% increase in single women using donor sperm to have a child, and a 50% increase among same-sex couples. </p>
<p>But the number of men who donate sperm in Victoria has remained the same, so there is now a shortage of donor sperm.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman sits reading in a medical waiting room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435746/original/file-20211206-15-3tu035.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435746/original/file-20211206-15-3tu035.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435746/original/file-20211206-15-3tu035.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435746/original/file-20211206-15-3tu035.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435746/original/file-20211206-15-3tu035.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435746/original/file-20211206-15-3tu035.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435746/original/file-20211206-15-3tu035.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Single women are increasingly using donor sperm to have a baby.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-patient-reading-magazine-waiting-room-421203046">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The option of freezing eggs for later use is also used by more and more women. Almost 5,000 women now have frozen eggs in storage in Victoria, up 23% on the previous year. </p>
<p>But it’s important to remember that although having stored eggs offers the chance of a baby, it’s <a href="https://www.varta.org.au/resources/news-and-blogs/whats-your-chance-having-baby-frozen-eggs">not a guarantee</a>. </p>
<p>For women in their 40s, using eggs donated by a younger woman increases their chance of having a baby. Our study showed women aged 40 and over who used donor eggs were five times more likely to have a live birth than women who used their <a href="https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajo.13179">own eggs</a>. </p>
<p>But finding a woman who is willing to donate her eggs can be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14647273.2021.1873430">difficult</a>. Most women who use donated eggs recruit their donor themselves and some use eggs imported from overseas <a href="https://www.varta.org.au/resources/annual-reports">egg banks</a>.</p>
<p>So while people might think pregnancy will happen as soon as they stop contraception, having a baby is <a href="https://www.yourfertility.org.au/fertility-week-2021">not always easy</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/egg-freezing-wont-insure-women-against-infertility-or-help-break-the-glass-ceiling-46619">Egg freezing won't insure women against infertility or help break the glass ceiling</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173151/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karin Hammarberg receives funding from The Australian Government Department of Health. She is a Senior Research Officer at the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority. </span></em></p>
While most women who try for a baby will succeed, some won’t, and some will have fewer children than they had planned to have.
Karin Hammarberg, Senior Research Fellow, Global and Women's Health, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164214
2021-08-09T12:29:05Z
2021-08-09T12:29:05Z
Taxing bachelors and proposing marriage lotteries – how superpowers addressed declining birthrates in the past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415008/original/file-20210806-25-577w61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=172%2C275%2C5559%2C3361&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In England, children were seen as a way to replenish the military and sustain the economy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-a-family-during-the-stuart-period-by-an-unknown-news-photo/543540010?adppopup=true">Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s growing awareness – and concern – about <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57003722">declining birthrates</a> in the U.S. and other countries around the world.</p>
<p>Falling birth rates are usually seen as a sign of societal decline, a nation’s diminishing power, and the eclipse of marriage and family values. Rarely are they put into any kind of historical context. But birthrates are cyclical <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fertility-rate-complete-gapminder">and have gone up and down throughout history</a>.</p>
<p>While some people might assume that the decision to have a child is a personal or private one, individuals and couples also respond to external forces. Economic, social and cultural factors heavily influence birth rates. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8b_mnWQAAAAJ&hl=en">As a historian</a> who has researched <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270606.001.0001/acprof-9780199270606">the uptick of single people</a> in the 17th and 18th centuries, I’m familiar with how governments and societies have traditionally responded to low marriage and birthrates with various persuasion techniques. </p>
<p>In the 1690s, England and France entered into <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/second-hundred-years-war/m02rgdp0?hl=en">a 120-year period of continuous hot and cold warfare</a>. The two nations were also superpowers that engaged in trade, established colonies and fought wars on multiple continents. </p>
<p>Maintaining healthy population numbers was a top concern, seen as a crucial element for ensuring economic and military might. So each country advanced a number of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pronatalist">pronatalist</a> strategies to encourage marriage and births.</p>
<h2>Marriage loses its luster</h2>
<p>In the 17th century – a period when marriage and fertility were more closely connected than they are today – the English were primarily concerned about low marriage rates. </p>
<p>Demographic historians E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/british-history-after-1450/population-history-england-15411871?format=PB&isbn=9780521356886">reconstructed England’s population trends from 1541 to 1871</a> to show how, thanks to a relatively late age at first marriage and high rates of people who never married, birthrates in England declined. From 1600 to 1750 the average Englishwoman did not marry until age 26 and the average man at age 28. This age at first marriage began to fall only after 1750 with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. </p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, anywhere from 13% to 27% of those English people born between 1575 and 1700 never married. This was highest in the last decades of the 17th century. </p>
<p>Various factors account for the high percentage of people never marrying: war, colonization and outbreaks of illnesses, <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Great-Plague">such as the plague</a>. Literature from England’s Restoration also reveals a negative attitude toward marriage among elite men.</p>
<p>So when the English government passed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_Duty_Act_1695">Marriage Duty Act</a> in 1695 to raise money to fight the French, it simultaneously addressed revenue needs and fertility concerns. </p>
<p>The marriage duty tax levied fees on births, marriages and deaths. But it also gave people an incentive to get married by taxing bachelors over the age of 25 and childless widowers. Women weren’t usually taxed because the government assumed men were largely behind the decline in marriage.</p>
<h2>Pushing spinsters into motherhood</h2>
<p>Cultural pressure also served to persuade or encourage women to marry. </p>
<p>Emerging at the same time as the marriage duty tax were the first literary and visual depictions of the “old maid” archetype, a portrayal of never-married women that was always disparaging. </p>
<p>A classic example is William Hogarth’s print “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Times_of_the_Day">Morning</a>” from his “Four Times of the Day” series. It features a censorious, unpartnered, unattractive woman who is deemed to be past her prime.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412287/original/file-20210720-21-z1eq3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A haggard woman with a pockmarked face observes attractive couples." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412287/original/file-20210720-21-z1eq3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412287/original/file-20210720-21-z1eq3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412287/original/file-20210720-21-z1eq3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412287/original/file-20210720-21-z1eq3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412287/original/file-20210720-21-z1eq3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412287/original/file-20210720-21-z1eq3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412287/original/file-20210720-21-z1eq3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Hogarth’s ‘Morning’ depicts an unmarried woman in an unflattering light.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/dp/original/DP827065.jpg">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Literary satirists also suggested marital lotteries to partner off undesirable spinsters. A 1710 proposal for “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/love-lottery-or-a-woman-the-prize-being-a-pleasant-new-invention-where-any-maid-or-widdow-that-puts-in-ten-shillings-shall-be-sure-of-a-husband-and-perhaps-five-hundred-pound-to-her-portion-there-being-above-twenty-prizes-to-one-blank-with-the-same-chance-to-batchelors-or-widdowers-to-be-drawn-on-midsummer-day-next-also-an-office-of-intelligence-to-be-kept-at-the-same-place-where-any-maid-or-widdow-batchelor-or-widdower-may-enter-their-names-fortunes-and-characters-and-be-advisd-of-suitable-matches-in-a-very-little-time-without-any-manner-of-trouble-the-like-never-before-publishd/oclc/642587287">The Love Lottery: Or, a Woman the Prize</a>” responded directly to the marriage duty tax. The author proclaimed that instead of taxing marriages “they shou’d have propos’d to help’d ‘em to Matches.” He suggested a lottery in which “maids and widows” could venture 10 shillings and the prize would be a husband or a dowry. </p>
<p>This proposal was <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198767985.001.0001/acprof-9780198767985">one of many that appeared between the 1690s and 1730s</a>. For example, 1734’s “A Bill for a Charitable Lottery for the Relief of the Distressed Virgins in Great Britain” stated that “for the necessary encouragement of propagation, which we ought particularly to attend to upon the prospect of an approaching war, that all the Virgins in Great Britain from 15 to 40 should be disposed of [gotten rid of] by lottery.” </p>
<p>Although framed as prospective legislation, the proposed bill appeared in print only.</p>
<h2>Saving babies for France</h2>
<p>France differed from England by focusing more directly on increasing births. Although French writers contemplated various reasons for what they perceived to be low birthrates, high infant mortality was seen as a major issue.</p>
<p>In the 1750s Parisian midwife <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ang%C3%A9lique_du_Coudray#/media/File:Ang%C3%A9lique_du_Courdray.jpg">Madame du Coudray</a> capitalized on the French government’s pronatal stance and <a href="https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/2013/08/07/madame-du-coudray-a-midwife-in-a-mans-world/">offered her services to Louis XV</a> to train the country’s midwives in order to improve France’s live birth rates. </p>
<p>Du Coudray, herself unmarried and biologically childless, reproduced something else for France: what she called <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Machine_de_Madame_du_Coudray-Mus%C3%A9e_de_l%27Homme.jpg">her machine</a> – and what we might call a mannequin – on which midwives could practice different techniques used during difficult or dangerous births. Historian Nina Gelbart estimates that du Coudray and her disciples trained <a href="https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1g5004dk;query=;brand=ucpress">tens of thousands of midwives in successful delivery techniques</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A dummy child attached to a model woman via an umbilical cord." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414877/original/file-20210805-27-2mbp24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=580%2C625%2C3809%2C2330&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414877/original/file-20210805-27-2mbp24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414877/original/file-20210805-27-2mbp24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414877/original/file-20210805-27-2mbp24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414877/original/file-20210805-27-2mbp24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414877/original/file-20210805-27-2mbp24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414877/original/file-20210805-27-2mbp24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">France’s ‘national midwife,’ Madame du Coudray, invented an instructional mannequin to improve birthrates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zigazou76/8665628775">Frédéric Bisson/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pronatalism today</h2>
<p>Substitute 21st-century U.S. and China for 18th-century England and France and you’ll see the same sort of handwringing over birthrates in these two nations today. </p>
<p>In both countries, a resurgence of policies aimed at getting people to have more babies has already begun. China ended its one-child policy in 2016. After a disappointingly low jump in birthrates, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57303592">it has recently begun to encourage three-child families</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>It’s unlikely the U.S. will see the equivalent of a national midwife like du Coudray – or, <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/7774485/czars_in_the_white_house">to use today’s parlance</a>, a “reproduction czar.” But the U.S. Congress <a href="https://theconversation.com/biden-administrations-39-billion-child-care-strategy-5-questions-answered-159119">is finally talking seriously about increasing funding for child care</a>. And beginning in July 2021, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-families-with-kids-are-getting-monthly-payments-from-the-government-4-essential-reads-164467">the IRS started issuing monthly child tax credit checks</a> to most parents in the U.S. </p>
<p>Today’s policies are more of a carrot than the stick approach pursued by England with its marriage duty tax; instead of taxing bachelors to encourage marriage, the U.S. is providing a credit to existing parents. </p>
<p>It’s less likely that we’ll see single women openly derided as contemporary spinsters for choosing not to have children – although, <a href="https://theconversation.com/spinster-old-maid-or-self-partnered-why-words-for-single-women-have-changed-through-time-126716">as I’ve written</a>, Americans still tend to stigmatize women who choose to stay single and childless.</p>
<p>But if the past is any guide, 21st-century superpowers will continue to engage in pronatalist strategies, because marriage, family and reproduction are still seen as the cornerstones of societal and political power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Froide does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Go back to 17th- and 18th-century England and France and you’ll see the same sort of handwringing over birthrates that we’re seeing today.
Amy Froide, Professor of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162494
2021-07-06T12:09:24Z
2021-07-06T12:09:24Z
Expanding opportunities for women and economic uncertainty are both factors in declining US fertility rates
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409512/original/file-20210702-25-1cs12vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6470%2C4291&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women have many more work and educational choices than previous generations, which affect their decisions about having children.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/millennial-latina-bicycle-commuting-locking-her-royalty-free-image/1092350028">Justin Lewis/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The decline in population growth in the U.S. <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2021/2020-census-apportionment-counts.html">from 2010 to 2020</a> is part of a broader national trend linked to falling birth rates, but also <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-dip-in-the-us-birthrate-isnt-a-crisis-but-the-fall-in-immigration-may-be-161169">immigration changes</a> and other factors. In May of 2021 the scope of that change became clear, with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-birth-rate-keeps-declining-4-questions-answered-128962">record low</a> of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr012-508.pdf">55.8 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age</a> in 2020, a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr012-508.pdf">4% drop</a> from 2019. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/world/global-population-shrinking.html">Other countries</a> are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-drop-in-the-us-birthrate-isnt-a-crisis-161169">facing similar slowdowns</a> in population growth.</p>
<p>This shift has been underway in the U.S. for many years. </p>
<p>In the early 1900s, my grandfather grew up in a family with nine children in rural Iowa. They all worked hard to maintain the farm and support the family. Some of the children left the farm to attend college, start families and find work elsewhere. My father grew up in a city and worked as an adult to support his family as the sole income earner. </p>
<p>The next generation, the baby boomers, was raised during a period of economic expansion that accompanied an uptick in fertility – the average number of children born to a woman in her reproductive years. Post-boomer generations have had fewer children, contributing to a <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/birth-rate">50% decline in U.S. birth rates between 1950 and 2021</a>, from 25 births per 1,000 people to 12.</p>
<p>Economic opportunities, social norms and changing gender roles – especially expanding education and employment options for many women – help to explain why fertility has slowed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. That change has repercussions for trends in workforce numbers, employment, health care, housing and education.</p>
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<h2>Explaining the decline in fertility</h2>
<p>Each generation experiences unique circumstances that affect fertility. The overall trend in declining birth rates, however, is largely due to women’s changing roles, employment shifts and advances in reproductive health. </p>
<p>After World War II, the U.S. saw rapid change in gender roles with the expansion of women’s education and entry into the labor force. Starting with the baby boom period from 1946 to 1964, many middle- and upper-class women had increased opportunities to get an education beyond high school, which had typically been the end of women’s formal education.</p>
<p>In 1950, only <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/">5.2% of women</a> had completed four years of college or more. By 2020, this proportion rose to 38.3%. </p>
<p>In comparison, 7.3% of men completed at least four years of college in 1950 and 36.7% in 2020 – a smaller increase than for women.</p>
<p>Increases in college education and rising employment among women tend to delay motherhood. Women with higher educational levels, especially unmarried women, tend to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/us/declining-birthrate-motherhood.html">put off childbearing until their early 30s</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, medical advancements and <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fda-approves-the-pill">federal regulators’ approval of the birth control pill in the 1960s</a> expanded reproductive freedom for women. </p>
<p>This situation contributed to women’s becoming mothers later in their lives. For example, the median age for first-time mothers among women who were born in 1960 was 22.7 years, compared with <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db68.pdf">20.8 years for women born in 1935</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, the teen birth rate was a record low in 2019, with 16.7 births per 1,000 girls and women ages 15 to 19. Birth rates remain higher, however, among Latina and Black teens than teens who are white or Asian. In contrast, the share of women ages 40 to 44 years who have ever had children increased from <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/07/with-a-potential-baby-bust-on-the-horizon-key-facts-about-fertility-in-the-u-s-before-the-pandemic/">82% in 2008 to 85% in 2018</a>. Foreign-born women tend to have higher birth rates than U.S.-born women.</p>
<p>Geographic location also reveals important <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/birth-rate-by-state-4684536">differences in the U.S. birth rate</a>. Women in New England have fewer children, partly because of higher levels of education. In contrast, women in the South and Great Plains have among the highest birth rates in the U.S. </p>
<p><iframe id="lEqSa" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/lEqSa/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Finally, economic uncertainty affects fertility trends. Economists estimate that a family will spend on average <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-child">$233,610 per child</a> before they are 18 years old. Financial upheaval during the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009 also contributed to declining birth rates, while the COVID-19 pandemic saw a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/07/with-a-potential-baby-bust-on-the-horizon-key-facts-about-fertility-in-the-u-s-before-the-pandemic/">4% decline in fertility rates in 2020</a>, the lowest since 1979.</p>
<h2>A look at the future</h2>
<p>Fewer babies and young people and a growing older population will undoubtedly affect future generations. </p>
<p>Several developed countries in Europe have also experienced declining fertility rates, with widespread social and economic impacts. In Italy, for instance, rapid drops in fertility have led to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-italy-rising-anxiety-over-falling-birth-rates">closing hospitals and schools</a>. In 2019, the average Italian family had 1.2 children, part of a declining trend since the 1960s, when it was more common for families to have four children. As a result, Italy’s percentage of seniors is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/05/asia/japan-birth-rate-2020-intl-hnk/index.html">second only to Japan</a>, with <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-italy-rising-anxiety-over-falling-birth-rates">growing concern for future labor supplies</a>.</p>
<p>In the U.S., lower fertility rates translate to fewer working-age people and possible labor shortages in many sectors of the economy. According to the <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2020/65-older-population-grows.html">U.S. Census Bureau</a>, the percentage of people age 65 and older has been growing, increasing by one-third since 2010.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409157/original/file-20210630-21128-k6vbne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3949%2C2955&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman looks at a newborn baby in her arms" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409157/original/file-20210630-21128-k6vbne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3949%2C2955&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409157/original/file-20210630-21128-k6vbne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409157/original/file-20210630-21128-k6vbne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409157/original/file-20210630-21128-k6vbne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409157/original/file-20210630-21128-k6vbne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409157/original/file-20210630-21128-k6vbne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409157/original/file-20210630-21128-k6vbne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New babies are one part of a healthy society and economy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/new-mother-looks-lovingly-at-her-newborn-child-royalty-free-image/867572546">Diana Haronis, Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many economists and social scientists recommend a restructuring of work to <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/truth-behind-americas-labor-shortage-122500617.html">support and retain the shrinking number of workers</a>. These recommendations include more flexible work conditions, access to quality and affordable child care, immigration reform and job security. Several of these measures would provide much-needed support for parents and particularly women in the workforce.</p>
<p>Second, living spaces and residential housing may also have to accommodate this growing elderly population with arrangements that include assisted living, retirement communities and ways for people to age in place. These housing changes would help women in particular, who live longer than men. </p>
<p>Third, health services such as insurance, medical care and employment will have to adjust to these demographic shifts as more resources are needed to support an older population.</p>
<p>Finally, declining fertility rates are a growing concern for educators and policymakers. The so-called “<a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-demographic-cliff-5-findings-from-new-projections-of-high-school-graduates">demographic cliff</a>” will inevitably lead to school closings and consolidation, and declining student recruitment and enrollment in the U.S. One projection is that there will be <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-demographic-cliff-5-findings-from-new-projections-of-high-school-graduates">10% fewer college students in 2054</a> than today.</p>
<p>The overall decline in fertility rates has far-reaching effects on society and future generations. In the early 1900s, college education and a career were not options for women like my great-grandmother. Advances in reproductive health and women’s expanding access to education and employment have produced a demographic shift with implications for work, housing, health care and education.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>._]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162494/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann M. Oberhauser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Economic opportunities, social norms and expanding education and employment options for many women help explain why U.S. fertility has slowed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Ann M. Oberhauser, Professor of Sociology, Iowa State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160081
2021-05-04T16:04:07Z
2021-05-04T16:04:07Z
COVID-19 pandemic may produce dramatic changes in life expectancy, birth rates and immigration
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398419/original/file-20210503-23-1p6gyrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=88%2C0%2C7260%2C3413&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We're still studying the long-term implications of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic on populations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pandemics have historically given rise to major social and demographic transformation. Labour shortages following the Black Plague, for example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-3-prior-pandemics-triggered-massive-societal-shifts-146467">resulted in the rise of the middle class</a>. </p>
<p>Like its predecessors, the current COVID-19 pandemic will likely usher in major social changes as a result of the excess numbers of deaths, disruptions to fertility and restrictions to immigration. </p>
<h2>Reduced life expectancy</h2>
<p>The most direct impact of COVID-19 are excess deaths. By early May 2021, the pandemic had infected <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html">152 million people and had claimed over three million lives worldwide</a>. </p>
<p>The excess deaths from COVID-19 may reduce life expectancy. Some researchers predict that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2014746118">life expectancy in the United States has decreased by 1.13 years due to COVID-19</a>. The toll among Black and Hispanic Americans, who have seen their life expectancy drop by 2.1 and 3.1 years, respectively, has been especially high.</p>
<p>COVID-19 also has the potential to age vulnerable populations. A report from the Brookings Institute reveals that, relative to white Americans, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/06/16/race-gaps-in-covid-19-deaths-are-even-bigger-than-they-appear/">higher shares of Black and Hispanic Americans who died from COVID-19 are middle-aged</a>. Whereas whites comprise 62 per cent of Americans between the ages of 45 and 54, they account for just 22 per cent of people in that age group who have died from COVID-19. These differences imply that the pandemic will reduce the life expectancy of Black and Hispanic Americans.</p>
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<h2>Disrupted birth rates</h2>
<p>Past work has consistently shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-008-0219-2">fertility tends to decrease during long-lasting and deadly catastrophes</a>. Global research with preliminary data suggests that <a href="https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/qwxz3">the fertility trends during COVID-19 will follow this general pattern</a>. The U.S. had experienced a small drop in births prior to COVID-19, but the rate of decline more than doubled during the pandemic. </p>
<p>Concerns about their own health may explain why some women decided to forego a pregnancy during COVID-19. Pregnancy is associated with a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/pregnant-people.html">higher risk of developing more severe forms of COVID-19</a>. Expectant mothers also had limited access to prenatal care during the pandemic because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2020.10.008">many health practitioners scheduled less frequent in-person appointments to minimize exposure to the virus</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398416/original/file-20210503-23-ha24ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pregnant woman is examined by a nurse, a man sits in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398416/original/file-20210503-23-ha24ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398416/original/file-20210503-23-ha24ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398416/original/file-20210503-23-ha24ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398416/original/file-20210503-23-ha24ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398416/original/file-20210503-23-ha24ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398416/original/file-20210503-23-ha24ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398416/original/file-20210503-23-ha24ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Because of ongoing public health measures and restrictions, prenatal care is more complicated to access during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some women may have chosen to forego a pregnancy during the pandemic out of concern for their infant’s well-being. Infants can contract COVID-19 shortly after birth and, because their lungs are less developed, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2020-0702">they are at higher risk of developing more severe forms of COVID-19 relative to older children</a>. </p>
<h2>Economic uncertainty and birth rates</h2>
<p>Prolonged economic uncertainty may be another reason women have disrupted their fertility during COVID-19. The global pandemic and lockdown policies have exposed individuals to uncertain economic futures. Some couples may forego having a child during the pandemic because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12011">they are concerned about their job and economic security</a>. People may not wish to bring a child into this world when they do not know where their next paycheque is coming from or whether they will have a roof over their heads. </p>
<p>Others may forego childbearing because the pandemic has forced them to confront their own mortality. Many expectant parents may delay or eschew childbearing if <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48519-1_3">they cannot envision a future in which they will be able to provide a loving and secure environment for their child to thrive</a>. This may be especially true for those in communities hardest hit by the pandemic. </p>
<p>Increased child-rearing demands is another reason behind the pandemic’s fertility decline. School and daycare closures have meant that parents have had to take on many new responsibilities, including assisting with their children’s remote learning. </p>
<p>According to a survey of caregivers conducted by the Boston Consulting Group in April 2020, <a href="https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/helping-working-parents-ease-the-burden-of-covid-19">the amount of time that parents in the U.S. and the United Kingdom spent on education and household tasks doubled to roughly 60 hours from 30 per week</a>. Overwhelmed with the additional parenting responsibilities, parents may not welcome the challenge of caring for a newborn. </p>
<p>With only preliminary data, whether these fertility disruptions will hold or reverse themselves as the pandemic winds down is unclear. However, in the past, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/der455">a portion of the women who delayed their fertility in response to a long-lasting, catastrophic event never “made-up” their earlier disruptions</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398418/original/file-20210503-17-1ge88e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A concerned couple sitting on a couch" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398418/original/file-20210503-17-1ge88e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398418/original/file-20210503-17-1ge88e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398418/original/file-20210503-17-1ge88e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398418/original/file-20210503-17-1ge88e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398418/original/file-20210503-17-1ge88e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398418/original/file-20210503-17-1ge88e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398418/original/file-20210503-17-1ge88e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The pandemic has affected couples’ decisions to have children because of the impact on the growing expenses related to child rearing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition, for decades, fertility has been steadily declining in developed countries due to the growing expenses related to child care, education, health insurance and housing. Demographers cautiously predict that COVID-19 will <a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2020/10/28/the-pandemic-may-be-leading-to-fewer-babies-in-rich-countries">accelerate fertility’s decline, which will in turn worsen population aging</a>.</p>
<h2>Migration patterns</h2>
<p>COVID-19 may have also altered patterns of international migration. Roughly 105,000 border restrictions were <a href="https://migration.iom.int/reports/covid-19-travel-restrictions-output-%E2%80%94-22-february-2021">implemented around the world in response to the pandemic</a>. These restrictions, coupled with delays in processing visas, have hampered migrants’ mobility and contributed to a temporary decline in the number of international migrants worldwide.</p>
<p>Additionally, the pandemic is likely to have long-term impacts on immigrants’ decisions to move. COVID-19 outbreaks in migrant work sites have unveiled the substandard living and working conditions of migrant workers. Temporary migrants are often assigned to dense accommodations that do not offer the space necessary to follow social distancing guidelines. <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-canada-stigmatizes-jeopardizes-essential-migrant-workers-138879">And their workplaces often lack adequate personal protective equipment</a>. </p>
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<p>Anti-immigration sentiment has also increased and hardened during the COVID-19 pandemic. One in five Canadians report that they have developed more negative attitudes toward immigration since the pandemic started. The use of racist phrases like “Kung-flu” to refer to the pandemic has <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-atlanta-shooting-china-flu-anti-asian-b1818461.html">further stoked anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes</a>. </p>
<h2>What will the lasting impact be?</h2>
<p>Though it is too early to tell how temporary or long-lasting the impacts of COVID-19 will be, it is clear that the pandemic has already brought significant changes. These changes, in turn, have disproportionately affected non-white, immigrant and lower-income populations. </p>
<p>COVID-19 has magnified disparities — in life expectancy, population aging and fertility — across society’s haves and have-nots. The pandemic has also erected barriers to internal and international migration. In the absence of policies aimed at improving the living and working conditions of migrant workers, many countries may have difficulty filling labour shortages, mitigating population aging and achieving post-pandemic recovery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Choi receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Denice has received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).</span></em></p>
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is reducing life expectancy, decreasing birth rates and slowing down immigration. These changes may produce concerning trends in populations globally.
Kate Choi, Associate Professor, Sociology, Western University
Patrick Denice, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Western University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/152722
2021-01-07T17:32:48Z
2021-01-07T17:32:48Z
Why do people have more children in the north of Europe than in the south?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377217/original/file-20210105-13-1iqo9ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C297%2C6016%2C3710&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fertility is generally high in Northern Europe and low in Southern Europe. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/fr-fr/photo/amour-amusement-bonheur-couple-2253879/">Emma Bauso/Pexels</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Europe, each woman gives birth to an <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/main/data/database">average of 1.6 children</a>. However, this average conceals considerable variations from one country to another. Women in Spain, who have 1.26 children, are among the least fertile in Europe, while women in France, with 1.84 children, are at the <a href="https://www.ined.fr/fichier/s_rubrique/30029/575.population.societies.march2020.fertility.france.europe.en.pdf">top end of the spectrum</a>. But how does fertility vary within Europe, and what explains these differences from one country to another?</p>
<h2>High fertility in Northern Europe, low fertility in the south</h2>
<p>Fertility is generally high in Northern Europe and low in the south (Figure 1). This north-south divide was already visible 30 years ago (figure 2), suggesting that deep-rooted mechanisms are at play rather than cyclical economic factors.</p>
<p>One of the first mechanisms is family policy, which all European countries have. These policies aim to help families with children and enable parents (particularly mothers) to work, be it through allowances, parental leave after childbirth, and <a href="https://www.ined.fr/fichier/s_rubrique/19116/pesa448.en.pdf">care services for young children</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377218/original/file-20210105-17-vtz56j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377218/original/file-20210105-17-vtz56j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377218/original/file-20210105-17-vtz56j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377218/original/file-20210105-17-vtz56j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377218/original/file-20210105-17-vtz56j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377218/original/file-20210105-17-vtz56j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377218/original/file-20210105-17-vtz56j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377218/original/file-20210105-17-vtz56j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 1. Variations in total fertility rate across Europe (2018).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ined.fr/fichier/s_rubrique/30029/575.population.societies.march2020.fertility.france.europe.en.pdf">Figure taken from Gilles Pison, 2020</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377219/original/file-20210105-15-1p13h02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Figure taken from G. Pison, 2020" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377219/original/file-20210105-15-1p13h02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377219/original/file-20210105-15-1p13h02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1266&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377219/original/file-20210105-15-1p13h02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1266&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377219/original/file-20210105-15-1p13h02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1266&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377219/original/file-20210105-15-1p13h02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377219/original/file-20210105-15-1p13h02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377219/original/file-20210105-15-1p13h02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 2. Total fertility rates of the 28 countries of the European Union in 2000 and 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ined.fr/fichier/s_rubrique/30029/575.population.societies.march2020.fertility.france.europe.en.pdf">Taken from G. Pison, 2020</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Investment in services and financing varies between countries, however, representing around 1.5% of total GDP in 2015 in the countries of southern Europe and more than twice as much in those of the north, <a href="http://www.oecd.org/els/family/database.htm">around 3.5%</a>.</p>
<p>The expenses associated with parental leave are much higher in the countries of the north – not so much because of the length of parental leave, which can be long in southern countries, but because of the amount of pay, which is significantly lower in the south than in the north. The childcare offer is also much more developed in the north, and the proportion of young children taken care of by formal childcare services, i.e. other than by the family or relatives, <a href="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00657603/document">is much greater</a>.</p>
<h2>Would the Nordic countries be natalist?</h2>
<p>Does the significant support given to families by the countries of the north mean that they are birth-prone? The family policy in their case is not intended to increase the number of births, but rather to <a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_POPSOC_512_0001%20--%20family-policy-in-france-and-europe.htm">enable parents to balance work and family</a>.</p>
<p>These countries seek in particular to promote the work of women. Women’s labour-force participation rates there may be the highest in Europe, if not the world, but they are still lower than men’s. And state policy aims to reduce these gaps and ultimately achieve gender equality in the labour market.</p>
<p>The idea was widespread a few decades ago that for more births to occur, women had to stay at home. Actually, it is in the countries where women work the most that they have the most children. The female employment rates are the highest in Northern Europe and the lowest in Southern Europe, and it is in the north that women have the most children, and not the other way around.</p>
<h2>Inequalities between men and women: less marked in the north than in the south</h2>
<p>More generally, what seems to matter is the status of women in relation to men. It is more unfavorable in the south: inequalities between men and women are more marked both at work and in the private sphere. For example, <a href="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00657603/document">task-sharing among couples is lower</a>.</p>
<p>Without day-long childcare, it is often challenging for both parents to hold a job, and one of the parents may have to stop working. Men do not plan to take care of their newborn baby beyond a few days, and women do not want a stay-at-home mom life like their mothers or grandmothers; moreover, couples need to maintain two incomes to maintain their standard of living.</p>
<p>This is true both in Europe and in <a href="https://wol.iza.org/articles/female-labor-force-participation-and-development/long">many countries elsewhere</a>. Couples therefore delay the arrival of a child if it is not possible for them to reconcile work and family. By postponing childbirth, some couples ultimately give up on it.</p>
<p>Family policies in Northern European countries do not aim to support fertility, as mentioned above. Rather, their relatively high fertility is one of the indirect consequences, not necessarily intended initially, of policies aimed at <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25434736?seq=1">promoting equality between women and men</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377220/original/file-20210105-19-yq6ltq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Total fertility rate since 2000 in selected European countries and the United States." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377220/original/file-20210105-19-yq6ltq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377220/original/file-20210105-19-yq6ltq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377220/original/file-20210105-19-yq6ltq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377220/original/file-20210105-19-yq6ltq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377220/original/file-20210105-19-yq6ltq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1402&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377220/original/file-20210105-19-yq6ltq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377220/original/file-20210105-19-yq6ltq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1402&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total fertility rate since 2000 in selected European countries and the United States.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ined.fr/fichier/s_rubrique/30029/575.population.societies.march2020.fertility.france.europe.en.pdf">Figure taken from Gilles Pison, 2020</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The 2007–2008 financial crisis and the subsequent decline in fertility</h2>
<p>Fertility has remained relatively high in Northern European countries throughout the past three decades, but the fertility rate has fluctuated. It was on the rise in the early 2000s, then the trend reversed and the indicator fell sharply after 2008 (figure 3). This reversal is linked to the financial crisis of 2007–2008.</p>
<p>The economic recession and the rise in unemployment resulting from the crisis indeed made the future more uncertain. Some couples postponed their plans to have children in the hope that better days will come. </p>
<p>The decrease in the <a href="https://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/videos/animation-measuring-fertility/">total fertility rate (TFR)</a> in recent years has varied according to the country. In the United States, between the start of the crisis in 2007 and 2018, the TFR fell by 23%, from 2.12 children per woman to just 1.73 (figure 3). In the United Kingdom, it fell from 1.96 in 2008 to 1.68 in 2018, a drop of 17%. While France is no exception, the <a href="https://www.ined.fr/fichier/s_rubrique/30029/575.population.societies.march2020.fertility.france.europe.en.pdf">decrease has been smaller</a> – less than 8% between 2008 and 2018 – and began later as the effects of the economic recession hit the country more slowly. The shock of the crisis and the effects of unemployment were probably dampened by generous social and family policies in France.</p>
<p>The Covid-19 health crisis will be an opportunity to once again verify the cushioning role of family policy. The pandemic and the resulting economic crisis may indeed lead to a decline in births and the TFR. If so, will the decline be uniform in Europe, or more pronounced in countries with already the lowest fertility? The answer will come in a few months, when the children conceived during the crisis are born.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This text is adapted from an article published by the author in Population & Societies, no. 575, <a href="https://www.ined.fr/fichier/s_rubrique/30029/575.population.societies.march2020.fertility.france.europe.en.pdf">“France: the highest fertility in Europe”</a>, March 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152722/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gilles Pison has received funding from the French National Research Agency and the US National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>
Fertility is higher in Northern Europe than in Southern Europe. To understand, let’s take a look at family policies, equality between women and men and the economic context.
Gilles Pison, Anthropologue et démographe, professeur au Muséum national d'histoire naturelle et chercheur associé à l'INED, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/108654
2019-03-21T10:45:22Z
2019-03-21T10:45:22Z
Niger has the world’s highest birth rate – and that may be a recipe for unrest
<p>While fertility levels have declined rapidly in most parts of the world, many countries in the sub-Saharan African region of the Sahel have seen their reproductive rates go down very slowly, and only very slightly.</p>
<p>The average woman in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/nigers-independence-day">Niger</a>, for example, still has 7.2 children, according to the <a href="http://www.prb.org">Population Reference Bureau 2018 World Population Data Sheet</a>. The average in developing countries is 2.6 children per woman. </p>
<p>With an annual growth rate of 3.8 percent, <a href="http://www.prb.org">the world’s highest</a>, Niger could see its population of 22.2 million nearly triple, to 63.1 million, by 2050. Half of all Nigeriens are under the age of 15 – a higher proportion than any other country. </p>
<p>Neighboring <a href="https://www.indexmundi.com/nigeria/birth_rate.html">Nigeria</a> and <a href="https://www.indexmundi.com/mali/birth_rate.html">Mali</a> have a youthful age structure <a href="http://www.prb.org">similar to Niger’s</a>.</p>
<p>As a demographer, I am concerned by the situation in the Sahel region. I have <a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319468877">studied sub-Saharan Africa’s population growth</a> for decades, both <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_May80">at the World Bank and as an academic</a>, and I have learned that a surplus of young people can predict social unrest.</p>
<h2>Security demographics</h2>
<p>In theory, a young population should <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanian-president-bluntly-attacks-contraception-saying-high-birth-rates-are-good-for-economy-103513">drive economic growth</a>.</p>
<p>It can be a competitive advantage against Western countries that – like the United States, United Kingdom, France and Italy – have rapidly aging populations. Only 19 percent of the U.S. population <a href="http://www.prb.org">is under 15</a>.</p>
<p>But poor countries like those in Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/sahel-region-africa-72569">Sahel region</a> are struggling to provide many young people with education, health care and, critically, jobs. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264945/original/file-20190320-93057-4rlweo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264945/original/file-20190320-93057-4rlweo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264945/original/file-20190320-93057-4rlweo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264945/original/file-20190320-93057-4rlweo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264945/original/file-20190320-93057-4rlweo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264945/original/file-20190320-93057-4rlweo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264945/original/file-20190320-93057-4rlweo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264945/original/file-20190320-93057-4rlweo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sahel, a sub-Saharan region of Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saharan_Africa_regions_map.png">Peter Fitzgerald/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Niger is a peaceful and politically stable nation. Yet, despite <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/niger">robust economic growth since 2000</a>, it remains very poor. Just under half of Niger’s booming population earns less than US$1.90 a day, and <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/NER">unemployment is very high</a>.</p>
<p>Incomes in oil producer Nigeria are significantly higher – about <a href="http://www.prb.org">$5,700 per person</a>. But wealth is unevenly distributed, and about half of Nigeria’s population lives on less than $1.90 a day. </p>
<p>The countries of the Sahel are mostly rural. But, with so many young people, there are not enough agricultural jobs to go around. Many rural youth end up moving to cities looking for work – and find unemployment, instead. </p>
<p><a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a422694.pdf">Studies</a> conducted in a number of Middle Eastern countries suggest that a very young age structure coupled with a lack of economic opportunity can be an explosive combination.</p>
<p>That’s why a surging population is a red flag for scholars of a new field called “<a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/ecspr10_C-cincotta.pdf">demographic security</a>.” Baby booms can increase a country’s risk of civil unrest, conflict – and, in extreme cases, these booms can even foment extremism.</p>
<p>The risk of youthful revolt is highest when elected leaders are unresponsive – even <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-key-to-real-change-in-the-middle-east-police-reform-38749">repressive</a> or predatory – in the face of a frustrated and struggling population. Those were the ingredients for the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/28/tunisia-and-the-fall-after-the-arab-spring">2010 revolt in Tunisia</a> that sparked the first Arab Spring uprising.</p>
<p>In the most extreme cases, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-radicalization-happens-and-who-is-at-risk-52248">terrorism can take root</a> after conflict erupts. </p>
<p>Discontent makes people more <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-state-using-new-media-older-blueprint-to-fight-the-west-from-within-43220">susceptible to extremist ideologies</a>, while poverty helps terrorist groups enlist new recruits often by offering small monetary incentives. Political upheaval makes it easier for terrorist groups to infiltrate a country’s borders.</p>
<p>According to Serge Michailof in his book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/africanistan-9780199485666?cc=us&lang=en&">Africanistan: Development or Jihad</a>,” this is effectively how the Taliban took over Afghanistan after a Soviet occupation in the 1980s left the country <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2009/03/2009389217640837.html">leaderless and divided</a>.</p>
<h2>Danger in the Sahel</h2>
<p>Now, I fear the same thing is happening in the Sahel.</p>
<p>A decade ago, this region of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/africanistan-9780199485666?cc=us&lang=en&">West Africa was a generally stable place</a>. Nigeria, Mali and Niger all had <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/martin-meredith/the-fate-of-africa/9781610391320/">secure borders, no civil conflict to speak of and absolutely no terrorism</a>.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://theconversation.com/boko-harams-six-years-of-terror-have-revealed-the-depth-of-nigerias-troubles-36164">Nigeria</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-going-on-in-mali-51066">Mali</a> are rife with <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-terrorism-continue-to-decline-in-2019-104466">terrorist threats</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/countering-boko-haram-can-a-regional-approach-help-nigeria-36910">Boko Haram</a>, which was founded in Nigeria in 2002 to “purify Islam in northern Nigeria,” has killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of soldiers and civilians across the Sahel, abducted schoolgirls and executed <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/10/africa/boko-haram-women-children-suicide-bombers/index.html">lethal suicide attacks</a> using <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/25/world/africa/nigeria-boko-haram-suicide-bomb.html">women and children as human bombs</a>.</p>
<p>As al-Qaida loses ground in the Middle East, it, too, has began to spread into Africa. The terrorist organization has an estimated several thousand fighters in North Africa and the Sahel, who have sometimes joined forces with Boko Haram. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/boko-haram-will-talk-up-links-to-islamic-state-but-joint-activity-is-unlikely-38549">Islamic State affiliates are also operating in West Africa</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264934/original/file-20190320-93024-10543tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264934/original/file-20190320-93024-10543tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264934/original/file-20190320-93024-10543tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264934/original/file-20190320-93024-10543tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264934/original/file-20190320-93024-10543tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264934/original/file-20190320-93024-10543tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264934/original/file-20190320-93024-10543tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264934/original/file-20190320-93024-10543tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nigerien Interior Minister Mohamed Bazoum at a refugee camp in Diffa, Niger, in 2016 following attacks by Boko Haram.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pictures.reuters.com/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCIH57TC75&SMLS=1&RW=1536&RH=674#/SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCIH57TC75&SMLS=1&RW=1536&RH=674&POPUPPN=16&POPUPIID=2C0BF1FY6FSYZ">Reuters/Luc Gnago</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of these groups have now penetrated once-peaceful Niger, infiltrating its borders from neighboring Nigeria and Mali. Refugees from those countries fleeing Boko Haram have also settled in refugee camps on Niger’s borders.</p>
<p>Niger faces an “<a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/official-niger-is-facing-an-existential-threat-from-militants-/4490620.html">existential threat</a>” from militants, according to Minister of Defense Kalla Mountari, who spoke with Voice of America in late 2018. </p>
<p>The U.S. military has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/10/politics/niger-american-troops-presence/index.html">800 troops stationed in Niger</a> , where they <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/world/africa/pentagon-commandos-niger.html">provide counterterrorism training</a> to local troops. It is the second-largest U.S. military deployment in sub-Saharan Africa, after Djibouti.</p>
<h2>Challenges ahead</h2>
<p>A youth bulge in a developing country with high unemployment does not automatically lead to terrorism. </p>
<p>Togo and Tanzania, for example, are low-income countries with <a href="http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/total-fertility-rate/">high birth rates</a> but relatively low levels of conflict. </p>
<p>What makes Niger and Mali different, in my assessment, is that their populations are growing much faster – faster than virtually anywhere else on Earth. The challenges their governments face in providing for their people are thus much more acute. They are also located next to the vast expanse of the Sahara desert, where terrorist groups <a href="https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2017/282841.htm">transport weapons and operate almost freely</a>, according to the U.S. State Department.</p>
<p>In Nigeria’s case, extreme inequality, widespread poverty and poor governance compound the problem of youthful discontent, allowing terrorists to set up shop.</p>
<p>Gen. Michael V. Hayden, CIA director under President George W. Bush, foresaw today’s outbreak of terrorism in the Sahel. </p>
<p>In a 2008 speech delivered at Kansas State University, Hayden cited rapid population growth in “countries least able to sustain it” – specifically Niger, Nigeria and Yemen – as an urgent global concern.</p>
<p>In my experience, however, few leaders in the Sahel are prepared to grapple with the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2016.00165.x">political difficulties of reining in population growth</a>. </p>
<p>Most sub-Saharan African countries do have family planning policies aimed at curbing fertility. But triggering a rapid and significant fertility decline is a daunting task. Attitudes about family size and birth control are deeply ingrained, less than 30 percent of women of reproductive age use a modern contraceptive method and <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/abortion-africa">abortion access is extremely limited</a>.</p>
<p>Creating real educational and employment opportunities for young people is an equally daunting challenge. </p>
<p>Unless more is done to promote family planning and boost economic prospects in the Sahel’s fastest-growing countries, I fear terrorism is the likely result.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: The caption of the map in this story has been corrected to accurately describe the geography of the Sahel.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John F. May does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Research shows that unrest, even terrorism, can erupt in poor countries with a surplus of young people and not enough jobs. Can Niger, a once-peaceful sub-Saharan African nation, handle its baby boom?
John F. May, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies, Georgetown University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106663
2018-12-19T11:41:19Z
2018-12-19T11:41:19Z
‘Tis the season for conception
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251375/original/file-20181218-27773-1xwasmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=453%2C184%2C4289%2C2636&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lots of positive pregnancy tests this time of year.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/female-hands-puts-holding-pregnancy-test-1250481412">Kristina Kokhanova/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Does it ever seem like you’re invited to an awful lot of summer birthday gatherings? For good reason. In the United States, most births occur between June and early November. Count back nine months, and you’ll see that places most conceptions in the fall and winter.</p>
<p>What’s going on? Is the crisp autumn air, or the joy (or anxiety) of the holiday season, triggering more unprotected sexual intercourse? Or is it something else entirely?</p>
<p>It turns out reproduction is seasonal across all living organisms, from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1071/MF9941445">plants</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01650527409360466">to</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/seasonal-adaptations-of-insects-9780195036350">insects</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1934582">to</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00790016">reptiles</a>, <a href="https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19800152500">to</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/074873001129002079">birds</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0140">mammals</a> – including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2438">human beings</a>. The ultimate explanation for this phenomenon is an evolutionary one.</p>
<p>Earth’s environment is seasonal. Above or below the equator, the year is structured by the winter, spring, summer and fall. In equatorial regions, the wet and dry seasons punctuate the year. Organisms have evolved strategies to reproduce at the time of year that will maximize their lifetime reproductive success.</p>
<p>Humans are no exception and maintain this evolutionary outcome: birth seasonality. Researchers, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TTfRpvYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">including</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=oQH2tYIAAAAJ&hl=en">us</a>, have recently been working to understand more about why births are seasonal because these patterns can have a big impact on childhood disease outbreaks.</p>
<p><iframe id="gwVIB" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/gwVIB/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Tracking birth peaks across the globe</h2>
<p>The first studies demonstrating human birth seasonality <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/de-la-distribution-par-mois-des-conceptions-et-des-naissances-de-lhomme-consideree-dans-ses-rapports-avec-les-saisons-avec-les-climats-avec-le-retour-periodique-annuel-des-epoques-de-travail-et-de-repos-dabondance-et-de-rarete-des-vivres-et-avec-quelques-institutions-et-coutumes-sociales/oclc/49470881&referer=brief_results">date back</a> <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/physique-sociale-ou-essai-sur-le-developpement-des-facultes-de-lhomme/oclc/1013436366&referer=brief_results">to the</a> <a href="http://eudml.org/doc/180480">early 1800s</a>.</p>
<p>In some countries, local customs can explain birth seasonality. For example, in the 1990s, researchers showed that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/074873049000500303">traditional July-August wedding season</a> in Catholic communities in Poland resulted in lots of births in the spring. But wedding season does not drive birth seasonality everywhere, and there is only a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1951664/">small correlation between weddings and births 9 to 15 months later</a> in most locations. Thus, nuptial beds are not the full story.</p>
<p>There is a clear pattern of births across latitude. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2438">Here in the U.S.</a>, states in the North have a birth peak in early summer (June-July), while states in the South experience a birth peak a few months later (October-November).</p>
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<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2438">Globally, popular birthdays follow a similar pattern</a> with peaks occurring earlier in the year the further north you get from the equator – for instance, Finland’s is in late April, while Jamaica’s is in November. And in the U.S., states further south, like Texas and Florida, experience birth peaks that are not only later in the year, but also more pronounced than those seen in the North.</p>
<h2>So what influences conception?</h2>
<p>Research shows that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0032472031000142356">seasonality of births</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021932000008373">correlates</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2061235">with changes</a> in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0015-0282(16)47360-7">local</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41448616">temperature</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/074873049000500304">day length</a>. And regions with extreme temperatures typically have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/074873049000500303">two peaks in births</a> every year. For example, data from the early 1900s showed two pronounced birth peaks per year in West Greenland and Eastern Europe.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/074873049000500303">Rural populations tend</a> to have a more dramatic seasonal birth pulse than urban populations, probably because country dwellers may be more subject to environmental conditions, including changes in temperature and day length. Environmental factors like these could influence human sexual behavior.</p>
<p>Additionally, as in other animals, these environmental changes could drive seasonal changes in fertility. This means that, rather than just an increase in frequency of sexual intercourse, female and/or male fertility may change throughout the year, as an endogenous biological phenomenon, making people more likely to conceive at certain times – with the prerequisite of sexual intercourse, of course.</p>
<p>Biologists know that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod32.1.1">fertility of non-human mammals</a> is influenced by day length, which may act like a reproductive calendar. For example, deer use the shortening days of autumn as a signal for timing reproduction. Females get pregnant in the fall and carry their pregnancy through winter. The goal is to give birth at a time when plenty of resources are available for newborns – being born in springtime is evolutionarily beneficial.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251376/original/file-20181218-27773-psnew7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251376/original/file-20181218-27773-psnew7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251376/original/file-20181218-27773-psnew7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251376/original/file-20181218-27773-psnew7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251376/original/file-20181218-27773-psnew7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251376/original/file-20181218-27773-psnew7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251376/original/file-20181218-27773-psnew7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251376/original/file-20181218-27773-psnew7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evolution ensures that babies come when resources are abundant, to give newborns the best chance at survival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/big-meadow-shenandoah-national-park-doe-11547337">Mary Terriberry/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So animals with long pregnancies tend to be short-day breeders, meaning they only breed in the short days of autumn and winter; they’re pregnant through the winter and give birth in spring. Whereas animals with short gestation periods are long-day breeders; they conceive in the long days of spring or summer and, because their pregnancy is short, have their young that same spring or summer. Many species only mate and are only capable of getting pregnant during a specific time of year – those long or short days, for instance – and the length of day itself <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-571136-4.50007-3">directs their hormones and ability to conceive</a>.</p>
<p>Humans may not be so different from other mammals. Day-length has the potential to influence human fertility and it does seem to explain the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0748730404264658">patterns of birth seasonality in some places, but not others</a>. In addition to the length of day, researchers have shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/16.7.1512">social status</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech.47.5.362">changes in the standard of living</a> also affect birth seasonality. There seems to be no single driver for birth seasonality in people, with an array of social, environmental and cultural factors all playing a role.</p>
<h2>What does birth season have to do with disease?</h2>
<p>Forest fires require fuel to burn. After a big fire, kindling must be replenished before another fire can spread.</p>
<p>Disease epidemics are no different. Childhood infectious diseases require susceptible children for a pathogen to spread through a population. Once children are infected and recover from diseases like polio, measles and chickenpox, they are immune for life. So for new epidemics to take off, there must be a new group of susceptible infants and children in the population. In the absence of vaccination, the birth rate in a population is a major determinant of how often childhood disease epidemics can occur.</p>
<p>Babies are born with maternal immunity: antibodies from mom that help guard against infectious diseases like measles, rubella and chickenpox. This immunity is usually effective for the first 3 to 6 months of life. Many infectious diseases that strike infants in the U.S. tend to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1007327">peak in the winter and spring months</a>. That leaves infants born in the U.S. birth season of summer and autumn becoming susceptible as their maternal immunity wears off three to six months later, just when many infectious diseases are striking in winter and spring.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251377/original/file-20181218-27752-1onux4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251377/original/file-20181218-27752-1onux4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251377/original/file-20181218-27752-1onux4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251377/original/file-20181218-27752-1onux4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251377/original/file-20181218-27752-1onux4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251377/original/file-20181218-27752-1onux4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251377/original/file-20181218-27752-1onux4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251377/original/file-20181218-27752-1onux4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During the polio epidemic of summer 1955, a hospital in Boston helps patients breathe with iron lungs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Massachusetts-Un-/ade0290b02e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/1/0">AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>In humans, the average birth rate is extremely important for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.287.5453.667">understanding disease dynamics</a>, with changes in birth rate influencing whether an epidemic will occur every year, or every few years, and how big an epidemic can be. For instance, polio epidemics in the first half of the 20th century resulted in many thousands of children paralyzed by polio each summer in the U.S. The size of polio outbreaks was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002172">dictated by the birth rate</a>. Because of this, polio outbreaks became more extreme after the World War II baby boom, when the birth rate increased.</p>
<p>Similarly, the timing and strength of birth peaks also affects the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2438">length of time between epidemics</a>. Importantly, regardless of how often an epidemic occurs – like births – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1007327">it is always seasonal</a>. And births have been shown to directly alter the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1172330">seasonal timing of</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2011.0062">viral outbreaks in children</a>.</p>
<p>Does the number of children born in summer drive seasonally occurring childhood diseases? Does disrupting patterns in births alter seasonal outbreak patterns? We know that the change in the average birth rate can modify the size of childhood disease epidemics, as was seen <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002172">for polio during the baby boom</a>. Theoretical models suggest changes in birth seasonality can alter the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2438">size and frequency of childhood disease outbreaks</a>. But it remains an open question if the changes in birth seasonality that have been occurring over the past 50-plus years have in fact altered childhood diseases; more research is needed in this area.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251333/original/file-20181218-27761-1swzvh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251333/original/file-20181218-27761-1swzvh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251333/original/file-20181218-27761-1swzvh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251333/original/file-20181218-27761-1swzvh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251333/original/file-20181218-27761-1swzvh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251333/original/file-20181218-27761-1swzvh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251333/original/file-20181218-27761-1swzvh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251333/original/file-20181218-27761-1swzvh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Birthdays are spreading more evenly throughout the year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/qlS6vMR2PpU">freestocks.org/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Losing our seasonal connection</h2>
<p>There is one thing all researchers in this field agree on: <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2060988">People are</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01553618">starting to</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0748730404264863">lose birth seasonality</a> throughout the Northern Hemisphere. (Due to a lack of data, it is currently unknown what is happening in countries south of the equator, such as those in Latin America and Africa.)</p>
<p>There are two pieces of evidence to support this. First, the strength of the birth pulse – from June to November in the U.S. – has been decreasing for decades; and second, locations that had two birth peaks per year now only have one.</p>
<p>This loss of birth seasonality may be partially due to social factors, such as pregnancy planning and the increasing disconnect humans have with the natural environment and, therefore, the seasons. The root of this change is likely tied to industrialization and its downstream societal effects, including indoor work, fewer seasonal jobs, access to family planning, and modern housing and artificial light that obscures the natural day length that could influence fertility.</p>
<p>Whatever the cause of birth seasonality, one thing remains clear, at least here in the U.S. – right now remains the prime time for conception.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Micaela Martinez receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and the NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Office Of The Director, National Institutes Of Health of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number DP5OD023100. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin M. Bakker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Did you ever consider that human beings might have a breeding season? Birth seasonality exists – and has interesting implications for childhood disease outbreaks.
Micaela Martinez, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University
Kevin M. Bakker, Research Fellow in Statistics, University of Michigan
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/103513
2018-10-25T10:47:38Z
2018-10-25T10:47:38Z
Tanzanian president bluntly attacks contraception, saying high birth rates are good for economy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242116/original/file-20181024-71038-17f0kw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tanzania was one of the first sub-Saharan African nations to embrace family planning as a national development priority.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.africom.mil/Img/5029/Super/US-AFRICOM-Photo">US Air Force</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tanzanian President John Magufuli has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/25/africa/tanzania-suspends-family-planning-advert-intl/index.html">suspended</a> advertising by family planning organizations until further review, raising outcry among human rights groups and <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2018/09/21/is-magufuli-bullying-tanzania-s-health-ministry-as-family-planning-ads-are//">causing unrest</a> within Tanzania’s health ministry. </p>
<p>The move came weeks after Magufuli made <a href="https://www.kff.org/news-summary/tanzania-president-magufuli-calls-for-citizens-to-stop-using-birth-control-to-increase-population/">international headlines</a> for inflammatory comments calling <a href="http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/Magufuli-advises-against-birth-control/1840340-4751990-4h8fqpz/index.html">women who use contraception</a> “lazy” and saying that he does “not see any need for birth control in Tanzania,” one of the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/264687/countries-with-the-highest-population-growth-rate/">world’s fastest-growing countries</a>. </p>
<p>Amnesty International <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/09/tanzania-decision-to-pull-family-planning-ads-an-attack-on-sexual-and-reproductive-rights/">denounced</a> Magufuli’s stance as an attack on the sexual and reproductive rights of Tanzanian women.</p>
<p>Tanzania has a history of promoting family planning, making Magufuli’s sudden opposition to birth control surprising.</p>
<p>But, as my <a href="https://womenalsoknowhistory.com/individual-scholar-page/?pdb=2328">demographic research</a> shows, Magufuli is not the only world leader questioning longstanding population control policies.</p>
<h2>Development and fertility</h2>
<p>Magufuli, who took office in 2015, earned the nickname “The Bulldozer” during his previous two decades in Tanzanian politics. </p>
<p>His administration garnered <a href="https://theconversation.com/magufuli-has-been-president-for-two-years-how-hes-changing-tanzania-86777">early popular support</a> in the East African nation for dismissing corrupt public officials and reorienting government spending, particularly toward anti-cholera operations and other public health services. </p>
<p>But he has also <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2016/05/26/government-by-gesture">made undemocratic moves</a>, shutting down <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/01/25/tanzania-loves-its-new-anti-corruption-president-why-is-he-shutting-down-media-outlets/?utm_term=.12c01bc712ca">newspapers critical of his administration</a> and undermining judicial independence. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242117/original/file-20181024-71020-eb6g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242117/original/file-20181024-71020-eb6g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242117/original/file-20181024-71020-eb6g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242117/original/file-20181024-71020-eb6g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242117/original/file-20181024-71020-eb6g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242117/original/file-20181024-71020-eb6g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242117/original/file-20181024-71020-eb6g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Magufuli is known for his fiery rhetoric.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2C0BXZFVNYSAE&SMLS=1&RW=1264&RH=744&POPUPPN=24&POPUPIID=2C0BF1OH3B26M">Reuters/Sadi Said</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many Tanzanians, especially young people and urbanites, have lost patience with his strongman tactics, <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/ea/Tanzania-John-Magufuli-popularity-falls/4552908-4649482-12a4cwv/index.html">polling shows</a>.</p>
<p>Now his sudden opposition to birth control has raised concern that Tanzanian women could lose access to contraception. </p>
<p>Since the Industrial Revolution, economic development worldwide has <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08230">closely correlated</a> with lowering birth rates.</p>
<p>In Africa, the United Nations has <a href="http://www.un.org/popin/icpd/conference/bkg/pop.html">documented</a> a relationship between high population growth and lower quality of life. High fertility can exacerbate poverty and strain resource-strapped governments’ ability to provide public services like health care and education. </p>
<p>African leaders have generally <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/policy/Compendium/Volume%20II/j_Chapter%205.pdf">acknowledged</a> the connection between demography and development, though their demographic policies have varied. Tanzania, a British colony until 1961, was one of the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to embrace family planning. </p>
<p>In 1959, the <a href="http://www.umati.or.tz/index.php/who-we-are/about-umati">Family Planning Association of Tanzania</a> – now a <a href="https://www.ippf.org/about-us/member-associations/tanzania">member</a> of the International Planned Parenthood Federation – was founded to offer sexual education and contraception, though not abortion services.</p>
<p>At the time, the average Tanzanian woman had <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=TZ">almost seven</a> children. Cultural attitudes varied among the country’s <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/NEH/tethnic.htm">100-plus</a> ethnic groups, but children were generally seen a status symbol and a source of labor for the majority who practiced subsistence farming and herding. </p>
<p>Tanzania’s first president, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Nyerere">Julius Nyerere</a>, emphasized social and economic development as the basis for his policy agenda. He called his plan “Ujamaa,” which means “familyhood” in Swahili, Tanzania’s national language. </p>
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<p>By choosing that term, Nyerere wanted to stress the connection between the newly sovereign nation and the families at its core.</p>
<p>In a 1969 speech introducing his <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=i9fLugEACAAJ&dq=tanzania+second+five+year+development+plan&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTgeOZtZreAhWQq1kKHV3FDN0Q6AEIMDAC">blueprint for development in Tanzania</a>, Nyerere urged citizens to “put emphasis on caring for children and the ability to look after them properly, rather than thinking only about the numbers of children and the ability to give birth.”</p>
<h2>Tanzania’s Catholic champion of birth control</h2>
<p>President Nyerere was Catholic, like roughly <a href="http://globalreligiousfutures.org/countries/tanzania#/?affiliations_religion_id=0&affiliations_year=2010&region_name=All%20Countries&restrictions_year=2016">one-third</a> of Tanzania’s population. Then, as now, the Vatican officially opposed birth control. </p>
<p>But Nyerere rallied prominent local Catholic bishops around his efforts to link development and family planning. </p>
<p>“Nobody should have a single child unless he or she is able to take care of it,” said the late Tanzanian Bishop Fortunatus Lukanima in an <a href="https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:275035/FULLTEXT01.pdf">interview</a> after his retirement in 1998. “Let’s discuss family planning, condoms, birth control and so on.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242118/original/file-20181024-71038-1g773bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242118/original/file-20181024-71038-1g773bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242118/original/file-20181024-71038-1g773bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242118/original/file-20181024-71038-1g773bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242118/original/file-20181024-71038-1g773bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242118/original/file-20181024-71038-1g773bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242118/original/file-20181024-71038-1g773bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242118/original/file-20181024-71038-1g773bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tanzania’s first president, Julius Nyerere (center) saw reduced fertility as key to Tanzania’s future as a sovereign nation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_National_Archives_UK_-_CO_1069-164-60.jpg">UK National Archives</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nyerere’s government also enlisted Muslim religious leaders to promote family planning in Tanzania’s predominantly Muslim coastal areas. </p>
<p>After he stepped down in 1985, consecutive administrations have continued to <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1860/tanzania-2014-family-planning-fact-sheet">support family planning</a> and pass national population policies aimed at <a href="https://extranet.who.int/nutrition/gina/sites/default/files/TZA%202006%20National%20Population%20Policy.pdf">lowering Tanzania’s fertility rates</a>.</p>
<p>Despite these efforts, Tanzania still has one of the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/264687/countries-with-the-highest-population-growth-rate/">world’s highest birth rates</a>. The average Tanzanian woman has five children, double the <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate">global average</a>.</p>
<p>Tanzania’s population has grown from around 10 million at independence in 1961 to almost <a href="http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/tanzania-population/">60 million</a> today. That’s triple the growth rate of the United States, double that of China and above even Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.</p>
<h2>Is population growth a problem?</h2>
<p>This contradiction is seen across Africa. </p>
<p>Family planning <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1971615?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">programs</a> have <a href="https://esa.un.org/PopPolicy/charting/graphs.aspx">nearly universal government support</a>. Yet the continent is still projected to account for <a href="https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_KeyFindings.pdf">82 percent of the world’s population growth</a> between now and 2100.</p>
<p>Common wisdom sees rapid population growth as a problem for low-income countries. If economic growth doesn’t keep pace, governments struggle to adequately provide services like housing, health care and education. </p>
<p>But the relationship between population growth and economic development is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0032472031000149536?casa_token=FODrOCX_q84AAAAA:1jBuNOeCyomLUHRm8yIunY_HFi-xGrOcgM3VXhCfm5lSnKmmrrxNItcrGL03YLi8nDbV_OQHBxs">murkier</a> than international organizations like the UN have long thought. And it’s changing with the times.</p>
<p>With fertility rates in Western Europe <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/23/baby-crisis-europe-brink-depopulation-disaster">perilously low</a> – in Spain, two people die for every one person born – some developing countries believe that a huge workforce and consumer pool could give them a global advantage. </p>
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<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/28/china-could-scrap-two-child-policy-ending-nearly-40-years-of-limits">China</a> and <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/russia/the-economist-russia-to-raise-pension-ages-that-date-back-to-stalin.html">Russia</a> recently reversed long-standing population-control policies, citing economic reasons. </p>
<p>Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni also <a href="https://www.yowerikmuseveni.com/address-national-state-affairs">sees population growth</a> as a boon to Africa – and global markets.</p>
<p>Magufuli’s anti birth-control comments came in <a href="http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/Magufuli-advises-against-birth-control/1840340-4751990-4h8fqpz/index.html">this context</a>. Emboldened by <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/announcements/new-2025-global-growth-projections-predict-chinas-further-slowdown">optimistic projections</a> of economic growth in East Africa, he says a booming population could actually benefit Tanzania. </p>
<p>Tanzania has US$10 million <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201806130591.html">earmarked</a> for family planning next year. Magufuli seems to be considering redirecting this money to pay for education, health care and other social programs with a more tangible socioeconomic impact. </p>
<h2>Choosing a demographic destiny</h2>
<p>Most demographers agree that African countries will eventually experience the same drop in fertility rates that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1972620?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">high-income Western democracies</a> in the 20th century.</p>
<p>So far, there is little evidence that government policies promoting <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/657081?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">women’s reproductive choice</a> and access to contraception will spur that process. </p>
<p>If Magufuli’s rejection of family planning becomes policy, it would be a major setback for Tanzanian <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RX1-GvI-WKkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=population+growth+development+women%27s+rights+environment&ots=SVwQXKiVgT&sig=4QjruUWcjNL9PKn1cCzuMUKFUhI#v=onepage&q=population%20growth%20development%20women's%20rights%20environment&f=false">women’s rights</a>.</p>
<p>But he is not alone in questioning long-accepted wisdom on population control.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristen Carey has received research funding from the U.S. Department of Defense in the form of a Boren Fellowship. </span></em></p>
Tanzania was an early, ardent believer in family planning. Now it joins a growing number of developing nations that see potential advantage in having a huge and growing workforce.
Kristen Carey, PhD Candidate in History, Boston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/81183
2017-07-24T05:57:39Z
2017-07-24T05:57:39Z
FactCheck Q&A: the facts on birth rates for Muslim couples and non-Muslim couples in Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178787/original/file-20170719-13554-jbuh98.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Journalist Mehdi Hasan responds to a question from a Q&A audience member. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Q&A</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>The Conversation fact-checks claims made on Q&A, broadcast Mondays on the ABC at 9.35pm. Thank you to everyone who sent us quotes for checking via <a href="http://www.twitter.com/conversationEDU">Twitter</a> using hashtags #FactCheck and #QandA, on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/conversationEDU">Facebook</a> or by <a href="mailto:checkit@theconversation.edu.au">email</a>.</strong></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Excerpt from Q&A, June 17, 2017.</span></figcaption>
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<blockquote>
<p>In view of the fact that in Australia Muslim couples have on average 4.5 children per couple, whereas the rest of us have 1.5 children per couple on average, is it not possible that in a couple of generations Australia could have a Muslim majority who vote in Sharia law? <strong>– Question submitted to Q&A by an audience member, posted on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/abcqanda/videos/10154515052566831/">Q&A Facebook page</a>, July 17, 2017.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Central to the success of the current affairs television show Q&A are the questions submitted by audience members and viewers to be answered by the panellists of the week.</p>
<p>During last week’s live show, audience member Roger French said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… in view of the fact that, in Australia, Muslim couples have a much higher birth rate than the rest of us, is it not possible that, in a couple of generations, Australia could have a Muslim majority who vote in Sharia law?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The original question French submitted to Q&A said Muslim couples in Australia have “on average 4.5 children per couple, whereas the rest of us have 1.5 children per couple on average”. Q&A’s producers did their own fact-checking on this question. </p>
<p>Q&A Executive Producer Peter McEvoy told The Conversation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We want people to ask questions that reflect their own opinions and concerns but sometimes we go back to the questioners to ask them to shorten or simplify their question, or to check a factual assertion.</p>
<p>When the producers spoke to the audience member shortly before the program, he wasn’t able to provide a source for the statistics and so agreed to drop them. When he asked the question live Mr French didn’t include the statistics but maintained the general assertion about birth rates among Muslim couples and other couples in Australia.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Q&A social media team wasn’t alerted to that late change, so the wording Mr French submitted in his original questions was used initially in Q&A’s Facebook post.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is understandable in the making of a fast-paced live TV show, and the Q&A Facebook post <a href="https://www.facebook.com/abcqanda/videos/10154515052566831/">was corrected</a>. But the original post had been <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/887111590436196353">shared on social media</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"886934833259200516"}"></div></p>
<p>Let’s look at what the data show about birth rates for Muslim couples and other couples in Australia. </p>
<h2>Do Muslim couples in Australia have an average of 4.5 children per couple?</h2>
<p>There is no evidence to support the claim that Muslim couples in Australia have an average of 4.5 children per couple, or that non-Muslim couples in Australia have an average of 1.5 children per couple.</p>
<p>Census 2016 data show that women of Islamic faith in Australia have an average of 3.03 births per woman, while the average for all women in Australia is 2.02 births per woman.</p>
<p>It is correct to say that Muslim women in Australia currently have a higher birth rate than other women in Australia. It’s not reasonable to say, based on current figures, that Muslims in Australia will outnumber non-Muslims in “a couple”, or even many more, generations. </p>
<h2>Calculating birth rates for couples in Australia</h2>
<p>When we’re talking about how many children a couple have “on average”, we’re talking about <a href="http://www.prb.org/Publications/Lesson-Plans/Glossary.aspx">birth rates</a>. Birth rates are calculated by looking at how many children are born, and how many women there are, in a particular population. Birth rates in Australia relate to women, not couples.</p>
<p>The Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes a number of births indicators, but these data are not reported by religion. Australian Census data give us an opportunity to examine birth rates by religion, with the caveat that reporting your religious affiliation in the Census is optional. In 2016, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310114.nsf/home/Independent+Assurance+Panel/$File/CIAP+Report+on+the+quality+of+2016+Census+data.pdf">96% of people provided a response</a> to the question about religion.</p>
<p>We can estimate birth rates from Census data using information about the number of <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2008.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7ENumber%20of%20children%20ever%20born%7E116">children ever born</a>, which is asked of women aged 15 and over. By looking specifically at the number of children women have given birth to by the age of 45-49, we can see what is called the ‘<a href="http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WFD2012/Metadata/Metadata_CEB.html">completed fertility</a>’ rate. <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/3301.02015?OpenDocument">Relatively few</a> births in Australia occur to women 45 years or over.</p>
<p>Prior to the 2016 Census, information collected about the number of children a woman had given birth to did not include stillborn babies; only live births. In Census 2016, the instruction to include live births only <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2900.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7ETISP%20Number%20of%20Children%20Ever%20Born%7E10085">was removed</a>. Despite this change, the data appear to follow a <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310114.nsf/home/Independent+Assurance+Panel/$File/CIAP+Report+on+the+quality+of+2016+Census+data.pdf">similar trend</a> as previous data.</p>
<p>Let’s look at what the data show about the number of children born to women who were aged 45-49 at the time of the 2016 Census. </p>
<p>Analysis of “children ever born” information shows an average of 2.02 births for all women aged 45-49 in Australia. Women in Australia of Islamic faith aged 45-49 had, on average, 3.03 births per woman. Women of Jewish faith of the same age had on average 2.17 births per woman, while women of any Christian faith of the same age had on average 2.11 births per woman.</p>
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<p>Internationally and in Australia, a commonly used measure for birth rates is the <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/natlinfo/indicators/methodology_sheets/demographics/total_fertility_rate.pdf">total fertility rate</a>. Total fertility rates are calculated using information about the number of births registered by women of different age groups in a particular period (for example, in 2015). Birth registrations are used to estimate the number of children a woman would have on average over her lifetime if those age-specific trends persisted.</p>
<p>Australian Bureau of Statistics data show that the total fertility rate for Australia in 2015 was <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3301.0Main%20Features42015?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3301.0&issue=2015&num=&view=">1.81 babies per woman</a>. That’s below the population replacement level, which requires around 2.1 babies per woman to replace herself and her partner. </p>
<p>Women in Australia who were 45-49 years old at the time of the Census and of Islamic, Christian and Jewish faiths are among the only groups examined which have at or above replacement level birth rates.</p>
<p>The difference between the Census figure (2.02 births per woman) and the ABS figure (1.81 births per woman) is that the Census figure relates to 'completed fertility’ of women now aged 45-49, while the ABS figures look at fertility rates based on current trends.</p>
<h2>Possible growth of the Australian Muslim population</h2>
<p>Is it possible that, due to relatively higher birth rates, “in a couple of generations Australia could have a Muslim majority”? We can address this question by looking at the proportion of the Australian population reporting Islamic faith.</p>
<p>In Census 2016, fewer than 3% of all Australians reported being of Islamic faith. By comparison, more than 50% of Australians reported being one form of Christian faith. 30% of Australians said they had no religion.</p>
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<p>Based on current birth rates (3.03 children per woman) and the size of the Muslim population (604,200 people, or 2.6% of total population) people of Islamic faith in Australia will not outnumber those of non-Islamic faith in “a couple of generations” – or even many more generations.</p>
<p>It’s also important to remember that children will not necessarily take on the religious beliefs of their parents, particularly in the long term.</p>
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<h2>Other studies</h2>
<p>In April 2017 the Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316861337_The_Changing_Global_Religious_Landscape">published a study</a> on global religious affiliation trends that received <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/world/muslim-christian-babies-pew-report.html">international</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/05/muslim-population-overtake-christian-birthrate-20-years">media</a> <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/april/pew-muslim-christian-birth-rates-2035-2060-demographics.html">coverage</a>. The report’s authors projected that, worldwide, “the number of babies born to Muslims is expected to modestly exceed births to Christians” by the year 2035.</p>
<p>The Pew Research Center data are based on assumptions about future demographic trends, and how many people will switch religions in the future. The report suggests that between 2015 and 2020, around 8.2 million people will leave Christian churches, while 420,000 people will join the Islamic faith. </p>
<p>The report does not include country level information, but it does estimate that by 2060, the percentage of Muslims living in the Asia-Pacific region (which includes Australia) is expected to decline from 61% to 50%. </p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>There is no evidence to support the claim that Muslim couples in Australia have on average 4.5 births per couple, or that non-Muslim couples in Australia have on average 1.5 births per couple.</p>
<p>Based on Census 2016 data, Australian women of Islamic faith have, on average, 3.03 births per woman, while the average for all women in Australia is 2.02 births per woman.</p>
<p>There is also no evidence to suggest that the number of people in Australia of Islamic faith will outnumber those of non-Islamic faith in “a couple”, or even many more, generations. People in Australia reporting Islamic religious affiliation are a minority, despite relatively higher birth rates. <strong>– Liz Allen</strong></p>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This is a sound FactCheck. The average numbers of children ever born for women aged 45-49 for the various categories of religion presented by the author are correct.</p>
<p>In view of the lack of published data on the fertility of religious groups based on birth registrations, the Census is the appropriate data source to use.</p>
<p>I agree with the author’s conclusion (and Q&A panellist Mehdi Hasan’s point) that, while the available evidence shows that, in Australia, Muslim women have a higher birth rate than non-Muslim women, it is extremely unlikely that Muslims will outnumber non-Muslims in Australia in one or two generations’ time. </p>
<p>I would further add that people of Islamic faith represent small minorities of the most recent inclusions in Australia’s population, both by birth and migration. </p>
<p>In the 2016 Census, 4.32% of children aged 0-4 years who had been born in Australia were recorded as being of Islamic faith. This figure reflects recent birth patterns and the identification of young children’s religion by parents.</p>
<p>The Census data also show that women of Islamic faith who were born in Australia have on average smaller numbers of children (2.67 per woman) than first generation migrant women aged 45-49 of Islamic faith.</p>
<p>In terms of migration, Census data show 10.53% of people who arrived in Australia between 2012 and the 2016 Census date were of Islamic faith.</p>
<p>The Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project projects that Muslims will form <a href="http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/countries/australia#/?affiliations_religion_id=0&affiliations_year=2050&region_name=All%20Countries&restrictions_year=2014">4.9%</a> of Australia’s population in 2050. <strong>– Nick Parr</strong></p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Conversation FactCheck is accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>The Conversation’s FactCheck unit is the first fact-checking team in Australia and one of the first worldwide to be accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network, an alliance of fact-checkers hosted at the Poynter Institute in the US. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-conversations-factcheck-granted-accreditation-by-international-fact-checking-network-at-poynter-74363">Read more here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Have you seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at <a href="mailto:checkit@theconversation.edu.au">checkit@theconversation.edu.au</a>. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81183/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Parr has received funding from Catholic Education Commission NSW </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Allen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Do Muslim couples in Australia have ‘on average 4.5 children’ while other couples have ‘1.5 children’? Could Australia have a ‘Muslim majority’ in ‘a couple’ of generations? Let’s check the evidence.
Liz Allen, Demographer, ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/81256
2017-07-23T20:10:08Z
2017-07-23T20:10:08Z
Women now have clearer statistics on whether IVF is likely to work
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179120/original/file-20170721-1588-1pz6yr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many couples undergo multiple rounds of IVF. Our new stats on the chances of a successful pregnancy reflect that.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/594690629?src=EJgxFDYkFWbBvXcHxn-NRQ-1-59&size=medium_jpg">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian women considering IVF will now, for the first time, have a more meaningful idea of their chances of having a baby, whether it’s their first or subsequent round of IVF. </p>
<p>Overall, for women starting IVF, 33% have a baby as a result of their first cycle, increasing to 54-77% by the eighth cycle.</p>
<p>Our research, published <a href="http://www.mja.com.au">today</a>, reports the probability of IVF success from a patient’s perspective after repeated cycles, rather than how it is usually reported, for <a href="https://npesu.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/npesu/data_collection/Assisted%20reproductive%20technology%20in%20Australia%20and%20New%20Zealand%202014_0.pdf">each cycle</a>.</p>
<p>This will help women of all ages to make informed decisions, with their fertility doctor, about whether to start IVF, or if they have already started, whether to proceed to their next cycle.</p>
<p>Unlike previously reported statistics, our data better reflects that IVF can include both fresh and frozen embryos, and that many women undergo multiple IVF cycles over a course of treatment.</p>
<h2>Infertility affects about one in six couples</h2>
<p>While estimates vary, <a href="http://www.icmartivf.org/Glossary_2009_FertilSteril.pdf">infertility</a> affects about <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1753-6405.2009.00408.x/epdf">one in six couples</a>, causing significant personal suffering to as many as 186 million people <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/21/4/411/683746/Infertility-around-the-globe-new-thinking-on">around the globe</a>.</p>
<p>Assisted reproductive technologies – more generally referred to as in-vitro fertilisation or IVF – have revolutionised how we treat infertility. Now, more than <a href="https://npesu.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/npesu/data_collection/Assisted%20reproductive%20technology%20in%20Australia%20and%20New%20Zealand%202014_0.pdf">70,000 treatment cycles</a> are performed in Australia and New Zealand each year.</p>
<p>A typical IVF cycle, involves stimulating a woman’s ovaries to produce multiple eggs, retrieving those eggs, which are then fertilised in the laboratory to create embyros. These embryos grow for two to six days before one, or occasionally two, fresh embryos are transferred to a woman’s womb.</p>
<p>Extra embryos are frozen and if necessary thawed and transferred in a subsequent cycle or cycles (known as “frozen/thaw” cycles).</p>
<h2>A complete IVF treatment cycle</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179119/original/file-20170721-3327-110ctbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179119/original/file-20170721-3327-110ctbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179119/original/file-20170721-3327-110ctbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179119/original/file-20170721-3327-110ctbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179119/original/file-20170721-3327-110ctbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179119/original/file-20170721-3327-110ctbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179119/original/file-20170721-3327-110ctbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179119/original/file-20170721-3327-110ctbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The new statistics reflect how IVF is conducted today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chambers GM, et al. Med J Aust 2017; 207(3):114-118 © Copyright 2017 The Medical Journal of Australia – reproduced with permission.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What we did</h2>
<p>We used data from the <a href="https://npesu.unsw.edu.au/data-collection/australian-new-zealand-assisted-reproduction-database-anzard">Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproductive Technology Database</a>, which contains information on all IVF cycles performed in Australia and New Zealand.</p>
<p>We looked at data from 56,652 women starting IVF treatment for the first time who underwent 120,930 IVF cycles between 2009 and 2014. We excluded women who used donated eggs or embryos.</p>
<p>We linked all fresh and frozen/thaw IVF treatments to the initial episode of ovarian stimulation for each individual woman, which allowed us to report by “complete” treatment cycles.</p>
<p>We reported two measures: the live-birth rate for each consecutive IVF cycle (cycle-specific rate), and the <em>cumulative</em> live-birth rate for each consecutive IVF cycle. The latter took into account all previous cycles performed (for up to eight complete cycles), taking into account the age of the woman when she started treatment.</p>
<h2>What we took into account</h2>
<p>Around 30% of women drop out of treatment after an unsuccessful IVF cycle, mainly because of the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/18/6/652/628767/Why-do-patients-discontinue-fertility-treatment-A">physical and emotional demands of treatment, a poor chance of success with continued treatment</a> and the cost, which is around <a href="https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6963-12-142">A$2000-4000 per cycle</a> in Australia. </p>
<p>So we calculated two measures of the cumulative live-birth rate based on assumptions around the chance of future success for women who dropped out of treatment – a conservative and an optimal rate.</p>
<p>The conservative cumulative live-birth rate assumed these women would not have achieved a live birth if they continued with treatment. The optimal cumulative live-birth rate assumed these women would have had the same chance of a live birth as those who did continue with treatment. </p>
<p>The range between the conservative and optimal cumulative live-birth rates gives a reasonable appraisal of the probability of a women achieving her first live birth.</p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>Overall, for women starting IVF, 33% had a baby as a result of their first cycle, increasing to 54-77% by the eighth cycle.</p>
<p>The cycle-specific rate varied by the age at which women started treatment and the number of previous cycles performed, but the cumulative live-birth rate continued to rise with repeated cycles.</p>
<p>Women who started IVF before they turned 35 had the highest success rates. For example, women under 30 had a 44% chance of a live birth in their first cycle, and a cumulative live-birth rate of between 69% (conservative) and 91% (optimal) after six cycles; women aged 30-34 had only marginally lower rates than these.</p>
<p>Women aged 40-44 had an 11% chance of a live birth in their first cycle, and a cumulative live-birth rate of between 21-34% after six cycles.</p>
<h2>The implications</h2>
<p>We hope providing success rates in this more meaningful way is reassuring for women and couples. Looking at the success rate over a course of treatment, most women will take home at least one baby. In fact, two out of three women who start IVF before they are 35 will, as a conservative estimate, take home a baby after three cycles.</p>
<p>However, these are population estimates and every couple is different. Our analysis does not take account of individual factors that affect the chance of IVF success. These <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/16/6/577/740269/Predictive-factors-in-in-vitro-fertilization-IVF-a">include</a>, how long the couple has had trouble conceiving, the level of body fat (measured as body-mass index or BMI), and ovarian reserve (a measure of the reproductive potential of the ovaries).</p>
<p>Whether women should start IVF treatment or continue it should ultimately be a decision for the fertility doctor and patient, taking into account all medical and non-medical factors.</p>
<p>This type of analysis can also be used to inform policy on IVF treatments as it allows policymakers to look at the success of IVF over a full course of treatment, better reflecting clinical practice than success rates with individual cycles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georgina Chambers is employed by the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) and is Director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit (NPESU), UNSW Sydney. The Fertility Society of Australia funds the NPESU to manage the Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproductive Technology Database (ANZARD). She has received an institutional grant unrelated to this study from the Australian Research Council (ARC), for which Virtus Health, a publically listed IVF company, was the partner organisation (2010-2013). She also holds two current NHMRC Project Grants related to fertility treatment and outcomes. She is an ordinary member of the Fertility Society of Australia.
</span></em></p>
Women will now be better informed when it comes to deciding whether it’s worth undergoing another round of IVF.
Georgina Chambers, Associate Professor, Director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/57299
2016-04-07T07:44:00Z
2016-04-07T07:44:00Z
How China is rolling out the red carpet for couples who have more than one child
<p>A rather remarkable turnaround has occurred in China. For a country famous for having the most comprehensive sets of policies designed to <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25469931">limit births</a>, it is now introducing new policies to support parents who have a second child. </p>
<p>In November 2015, China <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1873987/china-abandon-three-decade-old-one-child-policy-driving">announced</a> it would abandon its one-child policy and switch to a national two-child policy. The change came into force on January 1, 2016, with the immediate rationale being to tackle China’s <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjmsJbsnvfLAhUCXBQKHQ56AuMQFgg_MAc&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prb.org%2Fpdf10%2Ftodaysresearchaging20.pdf&usg=AFQjCNF5qfVDLhBQFXA2vX9uKQ-Af91iEg&sig2=exT5OHkbdMRAVKUnJU_WWw">rapidly ageing</a> (and projected declining) population. </p>
<p>Some predicted a <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/china-braces-baby-boom-under-new-two-child-rule-n489641">huge baby boom</a>. Others – <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00324728.2014.982898#.VwON_OIrJhE">including me</a> – suggested that the reforms were “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2015-11-12/two-little-too-late">too little, too late</a>”, and that “<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/china/21677416-simply-allowing-people-have-more-children-does-not-mean-they-will-chinas-two-child-policy-will">simply allowing people to have more children does not mean they will</a>.”</p>
<p>In early March, incentives for parents to have more children were explicitly mentioned <a href="http://english.caixin.com/2016-03-15/100920476.html">in a speech</a> by Premier Li Keqiang. <a href="http://gbtimes.com/china/two-child-policy-highlighted-chinas-parliament">Li noted</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We will improve the supporting policies to complement the decision to allow all couples to have two kids … We will encourage the development of kindergartens open to all children. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The theme was seen <a href="http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2016-03/09/content_23797321.htm">across the March meeting</a> of the National People’s Congress (NPC). Xu Ma, an NPC deputy and director of the National Research Institute of Family Planning, stated that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A lack of childcare and fewer job opportunities are major obstacles to Chinese women having a second baby … To help working mothers, community nurseries should be opened to care for children younger than three-years-old. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, NPC deputy Zhu Lieyu suggested that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The government should offer mothers of two children a living allowance for three years, and the sum should be 70-80% of the average per capita income in their specific part of the country. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>More concretely, the Chinese minister of finance, Lou Jiwei, <a href="http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2016-03/09/content_23797321.htm">was quoted</a> in state media to have submitted a set of proposals to reform individual income tax to support couples to have a second child. </p>
<p>While mortgage relief for couples who have two children appears not to have made it into the latest round of tax reforms, there <a href="http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2016-03/02/content_23711774.htm">is evidence that education costs</a> may be added to the list of costs deductible for tax relief. </p>
<h2>Local incentives coming thick and fast</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117505/original/image-20160405-28940-19j2lzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117505/original/image-20160405-28940-19j2lzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117505/original/image-20160405-28940-19j2lzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117505/original/image-20160405-28940-19j2lzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117505/original/image-20160405-28940-19j2lzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117505/original/image-20160405-28940-19j2lzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117505/original/image-20160405-28940-19j2lzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">China needs more young people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/editorial?cr=00&pl=edit-00%22>Shutterstock.com">TonyV3112/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At a local level, other policies to support childbearing are already being introduced. In late March 2016, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-family-idUSKCN0WR0ML">it was announced</a> that mothers in Beijing would be entitled to an extra month’s maternity leave, while new fathers would be entitled to 15 days paternity leave. </p>
<p>For some time now, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25469931">studies have observed</a> family planning officials in some large cities actively encouraging couples to take advantage of their rights to have a second child. In this way, local governments could become ever more proactive in designing policies to support couples to have a second child.</p>
<h2>Not worked elsewhere in Asia</h2>
<p>Governments across Pacific Asia have been introducing <a href="https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415468848">increasingly far-reaching policies</a> in recent years to support and encourage childbearing in an attempt to <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eap/brief/rapid-aging-in-east-asia-and-pacific-will-shrink-workforce-increase-public-spending">stem extremely rapid ageing</a> resulting from <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2010.00347.x/abstract">very low fertility rates</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most expansive and famous <a href="https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415670685">is in Singapore</a>. As well as <a href="http://www.sdn.sg/">government sponsored dating events</a> and wide-ranging maternity benefits, parents are effectively handed <a href="http://www.heybaby.sg/havingchildren/baby_bonus.html">“baby bonuses” and tax rebates</a> of tens of thousands of pounds per child. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, policies to support childbearing both financially and in terms of childcare and parental leave have been introduced in <a href="http://www.ipss.go.jp/s-info/e/ssj2014/007.html">Japan</a>, <a href="http://www.ipss.go.jp/webj-ad/webjournal.files/population/2012_Vol.10/Web%20Journal_Vol.10_04.pdf">Taiwan</a>, <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-21482-5_6">South Korea</a>, and <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-21482-5_4">Hong Kong</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, in each of these settings fertility has stayed resolutely low; <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-21482-5_3">not least in Singapore</a> which has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. </p>
<p>This is because the financial subsidies simply do not come close to offsetting the high costs of childbearing in these countries. Costs are further exaggerated by expectations of huge investment in education and other activities, sometimes called <a href="http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-2626-9780824825348.aspx">“education fever”</a>. These policies are also not able to adequately address some of the more fundamental reasons for limiting family sizes, such as fragile employment and the “triple burden” placed on women to work and take primary responsibility for both children and elderly parents. </p>
<h2>A helping hand</h2>
<p>There is now a broad agreement that it is <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-scrapping-the-one-child-policy-will-do-little-to-change-chinas-population-49982">not just the family planning policies which pushed</a> – and kept – fertility down in China. As such, just changing the policy is likely to have only a limited impact. </p>
<p>Assuming, though, that many of the other reasons for low fertility are common to both China and elsewhere in Asia, and given the limited success elsewhere in turning birth rates around, we <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00324728.2014.982898">might question</a> how effective policies to support childbearing will be at increasing the Chinese fertility rate. </p>
<p>But I think that this misses the point. If the new policies set out to encourage childbearing in order to achieve certain key population “goals”, then they may well not succeed. But the language of the new policy announcement does not appear to suggest this. In a break from the “old” way of talking about family planning, this “new” language is much more about “supporting” than “encouraging”. This is not just semantics. If the new policies are designed to support citizens to be able to meet their aspirations in terms of family, work and life, then their success should be judged on this rather than the birth rate in years to come. </p>
<p>Switching from the world’s most restrictive family planning regime to offering incentives for childbirth is a remarkable turnaround. But it may well be that the truly revolutionary aspect of this policy change is the switch from “controlling and shaping” citizen’s actions to meet the needs of the nation, towards “supporting and enabling” them to meet their own personal aspirations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Gietel-Basten receives funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>
Incentives to encourage childbearing haven’t worked elsewhere in Asia – can they in China?
Stuart Gietel-Basten, Associate Professor of Social Policy, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/50273
2015-11-24T10:15:14Z
2015-11-24T10:15:14Z
Climate change’s hotter weather could reduce human fertility
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102857/original/image-20151123-18271-135wjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How will climate change affect our conception chances? </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fetus ultrasound via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Policymakers are tasked with addressing climate change in the face of uncertainty: the 2013 <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf">IPCC report</a> projects average global temperatures will increase by anywhere from 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 6 degrees Celsius) in the coming century if we continue on our path of greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>The uncertainty is compounded by the fact that the consequences of any temperature change are unknown, including how something as basic as human fertility might be affected. </p>
<p>Understanding how climate change will affect fertility is an important economic concern. According to <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?order=w">World Bank</a> estimates, in the United States and many European countries, a woman has fewer than two children on average by the end of her reproductive life. </p>
<p>These “below-replacement” birth rates are already putting stress on programs that are funded by the working-age population, like Social Security. Any additional decline in births due to climate change could only make this worse. </p>
<h2>Links between temperature and fertility</h2>
<p>Global warming might directly affect fertility in two key ways. </p>
<p>First, hot weather could affect sexual behavior. After all, physically demanding activities are more difficult at high temperatures. </p>
<p>Second, temperature could negatively influence reproductive health factors such as sperm motility and menstruation. There are some pretty compelling <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781849/">experimental studies on mammals</a> to support this possibility. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102680/original/image-20151121-408-1sq8z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102680/original/image-20151121-408-1sq8z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102680/original/image-20151121-408-1sq8z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102680/original/image-20151121-408-1sq8z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102680/original/image-20151121-408-1sq8z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102680/original/image-20151121-408-1sq8z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102680/original/image-20151121-408-1sq8z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Experimental studies show that hot weather harms the reproductive health of cattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From Kelly Sikkema via unsplash.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is these two potential links that led us to hypothesize that global warming might be a threat to human reproduction, something that had yet to be thoroughly investigated by scientists and policymakers. </p>
<p>Our recent NBER study, “<a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w21681?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw">Maybe Next Month? Temperature Shocks, Climate Change, and Dynamic Adjustments in Birth Rates</a>,” tests this hypothesis using data on temperature and birth rates from the United States from 1931 to 2010.</p>
<h2>The ‘natural’ experiment</h2>
<p>Up until recently, there was little consensus regarding temperature’s effect on fertility due to the dearth of experimental evidence. We cannot quantify climate’s role by simply comparing birth rates in “hot” and “cold” places – Louisiana is different from New York in more ways than just weather. </p>
<p>To isolate the effects of temperature, our study relies on a natural experiment: weather fluctuations from year to year in each US state are effectively random. We tested to see if births in Louisiana changed after an <em>unusually</em> hot August. </p>
<p>Our study also controls for many social and economic factors that are changing over time, including economic opportunities for women and access to birth control. While we don’t discount their importance, we were interested in quantifying temperature’s effect above and beyond these other factors. </p>
<h2>Hot days and conception chances</h2>
<p>We focus on the effects of “hot days,” which we define as days where the average daily temperature is above 80F (27C). Because we averaged the minimum and maximum temperature, the daytime temperature on these days is usually above 90F (32C), which most of us would find to be very hot. </p>
<p>The core finding is that hot days lead to a reduction in birth rates eight to 10 months later. The effect size is largest at nine months: on average, each hot day reduces birth rates nine months later by 0.4% or about 1,100 births. Importantly, the data also show that air conditioning played a major role in minimizing the impact that hot days pose for fertility. </p>
<p>Our study also explores whether the initial decline in birth rates is offset by an increase in the following months. The data show only a partial (32%) “rebound” in birth rates in the three months after the initial decline, possibly due to lingering health effects, work constraints or the natural decline in reproductive health with age. This suggests that these shocks could reduce the number of children a woman has over the course of her reproductive life – <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html">a growing concern for the United States and many countries</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102725/original/image-20151122-408-1rxuick.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102725/original/image-20151122-408-1rxuick.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102725/original/image-20151122-408-1rxuick.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102725/original/image-20151122-408-1rxuick.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102725/original/image-20151122-408-1rxuick.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102725/original/image-20151122-408-1rxuick.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102725/original/image-20151122-408-1rxuick.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure illustrates the estimated change in monthly birth rates from each additional hot day. The decline in births occurs eight to 10 months after the hot day, and is then followed by a rebound in months 11 to 13.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As one limitation of our study, we tested for a rebound in births for only up to one year after the initial decline, so there could be some longer-term rebound for which we do not account.</p>
<p>While sexual behavior could certainly be influenced by hot weather, we present some novel evidence to suggest that reproductive health is especially vulnerable. If the story were just about temperature making sex uncomfortable, then we would only see a fall in births eight to nine months later. Instead, we find that birth rates also fall 10 months later, suggesting that hot days have lasting health effects. However, more research is needed to definitively verify this hypothesis. </p>
<h2>Fertility costs of climate change</h2>
<p>Currently, the United States experiences nearly 30 hot days per year. A <a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/modelling-systems/unified-model/climate-models/hadcm3">prominent global circulation model</a> projects that the United States will experience a tripling of the number of hot days to about 90 by the end of the 21st century. </p>
<p>We project that this warming will cause the number of births to fall by about 107,000 per year by then. There will also be more summer births, due to the rebound, which will expose pregnancies to considerably hotter days during the third trimester and will <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25592401?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Climate&searchText=Change&searchText=and&searchText=Birth&searchText=Weight&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DClimate%2BChange%2Band%2BBirth%2BWeight%26amp%3Bacc%3Doff%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">threaten infant health</a>. </p>
<p>As a caveat, these projections focus exclusively on the fertility cost of heat stress and do not offer insight into the costs of natural disasters or other major social changes resulting from climate change. </p>
<p>Should nothing be done to mitigate climate change, our study indicates that air conditioning can lower the fertility costs. But, we caution that in order to avoid exacerbating climate change, any increase in energy use for air conditioning must be offset with decreases in emissions in other parts of the economy. </p>
<p>While our study offers lessons from the United States, it is uncertain how global warming might impact fertility elsewhere in the world. </p>
<p>Many developing countries, like India, already experience hotter climates than the United States. As a result, these developing countries are more likely to feel the effects of climate change, which could include worse fertility outcomes.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this is one more area where the costs of climate change are uncertain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A world of warmer weather may be bad news for reproductive health and birth rates.
Alan Barreca, Associate Professor of Economics, Tulane University
Melanie Guidi, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Central Florida
Olivier Deschenes, Associate Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/46299
2015-09-09T05:02:37Z
2015-09-09T05:02:37Z
Are we overscheduling our kids from the moment they’re born? The real ‘labor’ economics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93342/original/image-20150828-19918-s99d7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hurry up! We're on the clock. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Baby birth via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Are we overscheduling our children even from the moment of their birth? </p>
<p>We live in an on-demand world. Movies are shown on request, food is delivered on call and drivers arrive when beckoned. As an economist, not a medical doctor, I was surprised to find new data that suggest more babies are showing up when scheduled rather than on their own time frame.</p>
<p>Numerous writers have suggested that <a href="http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/10-signs-your-parent-is-overscheduled/">parents</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/07/09/DI2008070901910.html">teenagers</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/fashion/over-scheduled-children-how-big-a-problem.html">children</a> are all <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/08/living/overscheduled-busy-children/">overscheduled</a>. Should birth be scheduled too?</p>
<h2>The baby boom</h2>
<p>In the early 1970s, an influential <a href="http://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/155472">review</a> of when women gave birth found that “[m]ore human births occur between 1:00 and 6:00 am than at other times of day.” Today, this no longer happens, since most babies in the US are born midafternoon in the middle of the week.</p>
<p>Not only does this issue set the tone from the very beginning of our lives, but it also is occurring on an enormous scale. Currently, the US has about four million births each year. To put that number in context, <a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo02a-eng.htm">Canada</a>, our northern neighbor, has a population that is almost 36 million people. This means every decade more babies are born in the US than all the people living in Canada! </p>
<p>Not only are large numbers born, but childbirth is a big business since the “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-birth-costliest-in-the-world.html">cumulative costs</a> of approximately four million annual births is well over US$50 billion.”</p>
<h2>When are babies born?</h2>
<p>Starting in 2003, states across the US began switching to a new standardized birth certificate that gathers much more information than the old birth certificate. Part of the extra information is the exact time of day when each child was born. The below table shows the time and day when babies were born, taken from the five most recent years of publicly released information.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92577/original/image-20150820-7225-98w4z7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92577/original/image-20150820-7225-98w4z7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92577/original/image-20150820-7225-98w4z7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=126&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92577/original/image-20150820-7225-98w4z7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92577/original/image-20150820-7225-98w4z7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=126&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92577/original/image-20150820-7225-98w4z7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92577/original/image-20150820-7225-98w4z7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92577/original/image-20150820-7225-98w4z7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This table shows the time and day when babies in the US are born, from 2009 to 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author's calculations</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no reason to expect that babies prefer leaving the womb on any particular day of the week. This means that births should be roughly evenly spaced out throughout the week. However, the table’s shaded gray bottom row shows this even spacing doesn’t happen. Instead, only 20% of all babies are born on Saturday or Sunday. If births were evenly distributed, about 29% (two days out of seven) of all births should occur on the weekend.</p>
<p>Babies are also not born randomly throughout a particular day in the US. If babies were born evenly spaced during the day, each of the table’s four time slots should have about 25% of all births. However, the shaded gray far right column shows far more babies than expected are born between noon and 6:00 pm. Interestingly, the midnight to 6:00 am time frame is now the least likely period for a baby to be born, capturing only 16.4% of all births. This is a far cry from the <a href="http://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/155472">1972 review</a> quoted above that found the early morning hours were the most likely time for women to give birth.</p>
<p>The yellow numbers in the center of the table show the most likely time for a baby to be born is Tuesday afternoon, closely followed by Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. The least likely time for a baby to be born, shaded in green, is very early Sunday or Monday morning.</p>
<h2>Why the change?</h2>
<p>There are primarily three ways to give birth: vaginal delivery, induced delivery and Cesarean section. Looking at the time of day when births occur using each method shows very different patterns (see graph <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db200.pdf#fig2">here</a>).</p>
<p>Vaginal births happen more or less evenly spaced out during the day, with a slight bump in the early morning hours. C-section births typically happen either around 8:00 am or noon. Induced deliveries typically happen around 3:00 pm.</p>
<p>Why are so many babies now born on Tuesday afternoons instead of early in the morning, like the data from the 1970s showed? Births today are more likely by <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17011400">C-section</a> or induction. </p>
<p>The percentage of women who give birth by C-section has dramatically increased over time (see graph <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db35.pdf#fig01">here</a>). In 1991, about 23% of all women giving birth had a C-section, but by 2010 this was almost <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_01.pdf#tab21">33%</a>. Since only about one-quarter of all women who undergo a C-section did a trial of labor, this indicates many C-sections are scheduled (see table 14 <a href="ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/DVS/natality/UserGuide2013.pdf">here</a>). C-sections may be scheduled by the doctor, or by the mother, or as emergency procedures. Unfortunately, birth records don’t indicate why a C-section was performed.</p>
<p>The same trend occurred for births that were induced (see graph <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db155.pdf#fig01">here</a>). In 1990, about 10% of all women giving birth were induced, but by 2010 the share had more than doubled to almost 24%. </p>
<p>There are many potential <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3751192/">reasons</a> for the increases in C-sections and inductions. Examples range from improved medical imaging that lets doctors determine with more accuracy uterine and fetal conditions during the last few weeks of pregnancy to a desire by doctors to avoid any type of problem to either mother or unborn child. </p>
<h2>Is scheduling a reason?</h2>
<p>Scheduling to meet the convenience of doctors and other medical staff is likely one factor driving this shift in birth times. <a href="http://www.bls.gov/opub/ils/pdf/opbils68.pdf">Data on when</a> doctors and other medical professionals work show the vast majority are currently on the <a href="http://businessmacroeconomics.com/">job</a> from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. Relatively few work during the wee hours of the night and early morning.</p>
<p>The shift from vaginal childbirth to C-section or induction has moved more babies from being born in the middle of the night to times more closely aligned with health care workers’ daily <a href="https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/5/4/5_2011.v5.4.139/_pdf">schedules</a>. Research suggests that when doctors and patients have an opportunity to decide when to schedule a birth, the <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=907406">doctor’s preferences win</a> out about three-quarters of the time, possibly because doctor’s value their <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167629695000399">leisure</a>.</p>
<p>Scheduling by mothers might be a contributing factor in a small number of cases. Research has found that some Chinese mothers appear to be <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X15000404">scheduling their sons’</a> births to avoid unlucky days and ensure a lucky birthday. <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.20130243">Tax implications</a> also have a small impact on births around New Year’s Eve. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.marchofdimes.org/mission.aspx">March of Dimes</a>, a non-profit devoted to preventing birth defects, is concerned about scheduling; it runs a <a href="http://www.marchofdimes.org/pregnancy/why-at-least-39-weeks-is-best-for-your-baby.aspx">campaign</a> asking mothers to wait until 39 weeks before giving birth. The National Institutes of Health convened an expert panel that estimated <a href="http://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Obstetric-Practice/Cesarean-Delivery-on-Maternal-Request#2">2.5%</a> of all births in the United States are cesarean deliveries done on maternal request, but cautioned that it has “<a href="https://consensus.nih.gov/2006/cesareanstatement.pdf">little confidence in the validity of these estimates</a>.”</p>
<h2>Does it matter?</h2>
<p>So what does this trend mean for the health of the baby and the mother? </p>
<p>There is research that suggests it is more <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-0528.1986.tb07863.x/abstract;jsessionid=E648C1C7FE957E4C63597282E3788CE6.f03t01">dangerous</a> to have a baby in the <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2F1471-2393-12-92">middle of the night</a>, when less medical staff is available. But the <a href="http://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Obstetric-Care-Consensus-Series/Safe-Prevention-of-the-Primary-Cesarean-Delivery">actual riskiness</a> of vaginal childbirth, C-section or induced delivery is affected by a whole host of factors depending on the mother’s, child’s and hospital’s characteristics.</p>
<p>This shift from unscheduled births to setting birth times is unparalleled in history. There is a clear benefit to scheduling a birth when there is a medical need. However, when there are no medical concerns, there are <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629613001458">advantages</a> to being flexible and spontaneous.</p>
<p>As a middle-aged male, I will never give birth. However, I think our lives are diminished when every event is scheduled, starting from the moment of birth. What do you think?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Are we overscheduling our children even from the moment of their birth? We live in an on-demand world. Movies are shown on request, food is delivered on call and drivers arrive when beckoned. As an economist…
Jay L. Zagorsky, Economist and Research Scientist, The Ohio State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/43347
2015-08-12T09:07:55Z
2015-08-12T09:07:55Z
Can the Earth feed 11 billion people? Four reasons to fear a Malthusian future
<p>Humanity is on course for a population greater than 11 billion by the end of this century, according to the <a href="http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2015/onlineprogram/AbstractDetails.cfm?abstractid=317963">latest analysis</a> from the UN’s population division.</p>
<p>In a simple sense, population is the root cause of all sustainability issues. Clearly if there were no humans there would be no human impacts. Assuming you don’t wish to see the complete end of the human race – a desire that is shared by some <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/vhemt-the-case-against-humans-1.742788">deep green thinkers</a> and [Bond super-villians](http://jamesbond.wikia.com/wiki/Hugo_Drax_(Michael_Lonsdale) – then the issue is whether there is an optimal number of humans on the planet.</p>
<p>Discussions on population growth often start with the work of Rev Thomas Robert Malthus whose <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4239/4239-h/4239-h.htm">An Essay on the Principle of Population</a> published at the end of the 18th century is one of the seminal works of demography. Populations change in response to three driving factors: fertility – how many people are born; mortality – how many people die; and migration – how many people leave or enter the population. </p>
<p>Malthus observed that more births than deaths would lead to exponential growth which would always outpace any improvements in farming and increases in yields. Consequently, unchecked growth was doomed to end in famine and population collapse. Malthus was right about exponential growth, but he was <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/11374623">famously wrong</a> about his dire predictions for the consequences of such growth. </p>
<p>At a global level we can ignore migration (no interplanetary migration happening just yet) and so the tremendous rise in the total numbers of humans is a result of an imbalance between fertility and mortality rates.</p>
<p>Over longer timescales, the recent increases look practically vertiginous. We seem to be on a trajectory that would surely exceed whatever the <a href="https://na.unep.net/geas/archive/pdfs/GEAS_Jun_12_Carrying_Capacity.pdf">carrying capacity</a> of the Earth is. However, 11 billion could be the high water mark as the UN forecasts population to slowly decrease after the end of this century.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91297/original/image-20150810-11085-ngrlhr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91297/original/image-20150810-11085-ngrlhr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91297/original/image-20150810-11085-ngrlhr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91297/original/image-20150810-11085-ngrlhr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91297/original/image-20150810-11085-ngrlhr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91297/original/image-20150810-11085-ngrlhr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91297/original/image-20150810-11085-ngrlhr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91297/original/image-20150810-11085-ngrlhr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Whatever sustainability looks like, it’s not this.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_curve.svg">El T / census.gov</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This brings us to Malthus’ first error: he wasn’t able to appreciate that the process of industrialisation and development that decreased mortality rates would, in time, decrease fertility rates too. Higher living standards associated with better education, in particular <a href="http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights13">female education and empowerment</a>, seem to lead to smaller family sizes – a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781829/">demographic transition</a> that has played out with some variations across most of the countries around the world. </p>
<p>This may explain how populations can overcome unsustainable growth, but it still seems remarkable that the Earth can provide for a 700% increase in the numbers of humans over the span of less than a few centuries. This was Malthus’s second error. He simply couldn’t conceive of the <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/full/nature01013.html">tremendous increases in yields</a> that industrialisation produced. </p>
<h2>How we fed seven billion</h2>
<p>The “green revolution” that produced a four-fold increase in global food productivity since the middle of the 20th century relied on irrigation, pesticides and fertilisers. </p>
<p>You may describe yourself as an omnivore, vegetarian, or vegan – but in an sense we all eat fossilised carbon. This is because most fertiliser is produced through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-chemistry-inventions-that-enabled-the-modern-world-42452">Haber process</a> which creates ammonia (a fertiliser) by reacting atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen under high temperatures and pressures. All that heat requires serious amounts of energy, and the hydrogen is derived from natural gas, which currently means the Haber process uses lots of fossil fuels. If we include production, processing, packaging, transportation, marketing and consumption, then the food system consumes <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/95161/icode/">more than 30% of total energy use</a>
while contributing 20% to global greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91333/original/image-20150810-11068-1xnnzz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91333/original/image-20150810-11068-1xnnzz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91333/original/image-20150810-11068-1xnnzz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91333/original/image-20150810-11068-1xnnzz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91333/original/image-20150810-11068-1xnnzz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91333/original/image-20150810-11068-1xnnzz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91333/original/image-20150810-11068-1xnnzz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All this, just to grow some plants? Billingham is one of the UK’s largest fertiliser factories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Billingham_ICI_plant_September_1970_No._7_geograph-3436065-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg">Ben Brooksbank</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Feeding the next four billion</h2>
<p>If industrialised agriculture can now feed seven billion, then why can’t we figure out how to feed 11 billion by the end of this century? There may be many issues that need to be addressed, the argument runs, but famine isn’t one of them. However there are a number of potentially unpleasant problems with this prognosis.</p>
<p>First, some research suggests <a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n12/full/ncomms2296.html">global food production is stagnating</a>. The green revolution hasn’t run out of steam just yet but innovations such as GM crops, more efficient irrigation and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/farming/11706406/Londons-first-underground-farm-opens-in-WW2-air-raid-shelter.html">subterranean farming</a> aren’t going to have a big enough impact. The low-hanging fruits of yield improvements have already been gobbled up.</p>
<p>Second, the current high yields assume plentiful and cheap supplies of phosphorus, nitrogen and fossil fuels – mainly oil and gas. Mineral phosphorus isn’t going to run out anytime soon, nor will oil, but both are becoming increasingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/peak-phosphorus-will-be-a-shortage-we-cant-stomach-25065">harder to obtain</a>. All things being equal this will make them more expensive. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/opinion/10thu1.html?_r=0">chaos in the world food systems</a> in 2007-8 gives some indication of the impact of higher food prices.</p>
<p>Third, soil is running out. Or rather it is running away. Intensive agriculture which plants crops on fields without respite leads to <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/soil-erosion-and-degradation">soil erosion</a>. This can be offset by using more fertiliser, but there comes a point where the soil is so eroded that farming there becomes very limited, and it will take many years for such soils to recover.</p>
<p>Fourth, it is not even certain we will be able to maintain yields in a world that is facing potentially significant environmental change. We are on course towards 2°C of warming by the end of this century. Just when we have the greatest numbers of people to feed, floods, storms, droughts and other extreme weather will cause significant disruption to food production. In order to avoid dangerous climate change, we must keep the majority of the Earth’s fossil fuel deposits <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7533/full/nature14016.html">in the ground</a> – the same fossil fuels that our food production system has become effectively addicted to.</p>
<p>If humanity is to have a long-term future, we must address all these challenges at the same time as reducing our impacts on the planetary processes that ultimately provide not just the food we eat, but water we drink and air we breathe. This is a challenge far greater than those that so exercised Malthus 200 years ago.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Humanity is on course for a population greater than 11 billion by the end of this century, according to the latest analysis from the UN’s population division. In a simple sense, population is the root…
James Dyke, Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation, University of Southampton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/34272
2014-12-12T11:34:09Z
2014-12-12T11:34:09Z
Fewer births and divorces, more violence: how the recession affected the American family
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66636/original/image-20141208-5146-1h6qz0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Observers may be quick to declare social trends “good” or “bad” for families, but such conclusions are rarely justified. What’s good for one family – or group of families – may be bad for another. And within families, interests do not always align. Divorce is “bad” for a family in the sense of breaking it apart, but it may be beneficial, or even essential, for one or both partners or their children.</p>
<p>This kind of ambiguity makes it difficult to assess what kind of impact the recent recession and its aftermath had on families. But for researchers, at least, it offers a lot of job security – so many questions, so much going on. In any case, here’s where we stand so far.</p>
<p>The effect of the Great Recession on family trends in the United States has been dramatic with regard to birth rates and divorce, and has been strongly suggestive of family violence, but less clear for marriage and cohabitation. </p>
<p>Marriage rates declined, and cohabitation rates increased, but these trends were already underway, and the recession didn’t alter them much. When trends don’t change direction it’s difficult to identify an effect of a shock this broad. However, with both birth rates and divorce, clear patterns emerged.</p>
<h2>Birth rates: a sharp drop</h2>
<p>The most dramatic impact was on birth rates, which dropped precipitously, especially for young women, as a result of the economic crisis. How do we know? First, the timing of the fertility decline is <a href="https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/is-fertility-ready-to-rebound/">very suggestive</a>. After increasing steadily from the beginning of 2002 until late 2007, birth rates dropped sharply. (The decline has since slowed for some groups after 2010, but the US still saw record-low birth rates for teenagers and women ages 20-24 <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr63/nvsr63_02.pdf">as late as 2012</a>.)</p>
<p>Second, the <a href="http://ann.sagepub.com/content/650/1/214">decline in fertility was steeper</a> in states with greater increases in unemployment. Although we don’t have the data to determine which couple did or did not have a child in response to economic changes, this pattern supports the idea that financial concerns convinced some people to not have a child.</p>
<p>That interpretation is supported by the third trend: the fertility drop was more pronounced <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db60.pdf">among younger women</a> – and there was no drop at all among women over 40. That may mean the fertility decline represents births postponed by families that intend to have children later – an option older women may not have – which fits previous research on economic shocks. </p>
<p>It seems likely that people who are on the fence about having a baby can be swayed by perceived financial hardship or uncertainty. From <a href="http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol31/23/31-23.pdf">research on 27 European countries</a>, we know that people with troubled family financial situations are more likely to say they are unsure whether they will meet their stated childbearing goals – that is, economic uncertainty doesn’t change their familial aims but may increase uncertainty in whether they will be met.</p>
<p>However, some births delayed inevitably become births foregone. Based on the effect of unemployment on birth rates in earlier periods, it appears a substantial number of young women who postponed births will end up never having children. By <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/41/14734">one estimate</a>, women who were in their early 20s during the Great Recession are projected to have some 400,000 fewer lifetime births and an additional 1.5% of them will never have a birth.</p>
<h2>Divorce rates: a counter-intuitive reaction</h2>
<p>In the case of divorce, the pattern is counter-intuitive. Although economic hardship and insecurity adds stress to relationships and increases the risk of divorce, the overall <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X10002917">divorce rate usually drops</a> when unemployment rates rise. </p>
<p>Researchers believe that, like births, people postpone divorces during economic crises because of the costs of divorcing – not just legal fees, but also housing transitions (which were especially difficult in the Great Recession) and employment disruptions. </p>
<p>My <a href="http://www.terpconnect.umd.edu/%7Epnc/PRPR14.pdf">own research</a> found that there was a sharp drop in the divorce rate in 2009 that can reasonably be attributed to the recession. But, as we suspect will be the case with births, there appears to have been a divorce-rate rebound in the years that followed.</p>
<h2>Domestic violence: a spike along with joblessness</h2>
<p>Family violence has become much less common since the 1990s. The reasons are not entirely clear, but they certainly include the overall drop in violent crime, improved response from social service and non-governmental organizations, and improvements in women’s relative economic status. However, when the recession hit there was a spike in intimate-partner violence, coinciding with the sharp rise in men’s unemployment rates (I show the trends <a href="https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/maybe-the-recession-increased-violence-after-all/">here</a>).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66645/original/image-20141208-5146-osqx1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66645/original/image-20141208-5146-osqx1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66645/original/image-20141208-5146-osqx1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66645/original/image-20141208-5146-osqx1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66645/original/image-20141208-5146-osqx1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66645/original/image-20141208-5146-osqx1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66645/original/image-20141208-5146-osqx1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66645/original/image-20141208-5146-osqx1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Intimate partner violence and changes in men’s unemployment rate, 1999-2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philip N. Cohen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As with the other trends, it’s hard to make a case based on timing alone, but the evidence is fairly strong that the economic shock increased family stress and violence. For example, one study showed that mothers were more likely to report <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213413002226">spanking their children</a> in the months when consumer confidence fell. Another study found a <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/09/15/peds.2010-2185.abstract">jump in abusive head trauma</a> cases during the recession in several regions. And there have been many anecdotal and journalist accounts of increases in family violence, emerging as <a href="https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/recession-begets-family-violence/">early as 2009</a>. Are these direct results of the economic stress or mere correlation? It’s hard to say for sure. </p>
<p>The ultimate impact of these trends on American families will likely take years to emerge. The recession may have affected the pattern of marriage in ways we don’t yet understand – how couples selected each other, who got married and who didn’t – and may create measurable group of marriages that are marked for future effects as yet unforeseen. Like the young adults who entered the labor market during the period of high unemployment and whose career trajectories will be forever altered unfavorably, how these families bear the scars cannot be predicted. Time will tell.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34272/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Observers may be quick to declare social trends “good” or “bad” for families, but such conclusions are rarely justified. What’s good for one family – or group of families – may be bad for another. And…
Philip Cohen, Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.