Challenging conventional wisdom: Advances in development reverse fertility declines

A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Università Bocconi in Milan have released a study that challenges one of the most established and accepted standards in the social sciences: Human fertility levels tend to decline as countries advance towards high levels of social and economic development.

The researchers question the conventional wisdom by documenting new findings, potentially relevant to discussions of economic and social policy, of a reversal of fertility declines in highly developed countries once they reach a certain level of wealth.

The study, "Advances in Development Reverse Fertility Declines," by Hans-Peter Kohler and Mikko Myrskylä of Penn's Populations Studies Center and Francesco C. Billari of the Università Bocconi, is published in the current issue of the journal Nature.

Researchers looked at total fertility rate and the human development index, HDI, in 24 developed countries during a 30-year period. The data demonstrated that the well-established negative relationship between fertility and development has been reversing as the global population entered the 21st century. While social and economic development continues to promote fertility decline at low and medium levels of HDI, at advanced HDI levels further development can reverse the declining trend in fertility.

Now, HDI is positively associated with fertility among highly developed countries. This reversal of fertility decline as a result of continued economic and social development has the potential to slow the rates of population aging, thereby ameliorating the social and economic problems that have been associated with the emergence and persistence of very low fertility.

"This study provides some 'light at the end of the tunnel' for countries that were concerned about population aging and population decline as a result of very low fertility rates," said Kohler, a professor of sociology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences. "This is a surprising new empirical finding that will almost certainly generate additional research to better understand the underlying mechanisms of fertility change and possible policy responses to low fertility."

More information: The full study is at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7256/ .

Source: University of Pennsylvania (news : web)

   

• ivytower - Aug 05, 2009
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  Fertility most declines if women are required work outside the home and use birth control. Fertility declines with four things: (1) When women use birth control. (2) When women use the time in key years to pursue school or career during the prime reproductive years of their 20's. (3) Whenever women work outside the home. (4) When men do not support wives to be able to stay at home, and (5) Fertility declines whenever support of wives is withdrawn if men can easily abandon marital vows and where they can access casual sexual partners and thus do not need to commit to a lifetime of responsibility for a wife. Women do not have as many kids in the industrialized west, not because they don't want them-- but because males do not reliably support them to do so. Males in traditional societies marry their partners, and rarely do those wives work outside the home and thus those women are far more successful at higher rates of reproduction. Men in the west marry later-- and often exploit women for casual sexual purposes and thus waste a woman's optimal reproductive years.
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• Sauvignon - Aug 06, 2009
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  @ivytower - well put. In addition to the points you outlined, I would like to add that state subsidised education and medical care for children will definitely increase peoples willingness to reproduce.
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