Europe's Declining Fertility?

Brandon Berg wonders whether this might be a statistical illusion, or at very least overstated. If it's the case that women are choosing to delay (rather than forego entirely) childbirth then the standard methods for measuring fertility rates will show this as a decline.

Comments

[Dick OBrien]

Mark Steyn will be so disappointed. He's been predicting our demise for so long now.

[Frank McGahon]

He's not the only one, there are also one or two closer to home

[Abiola]

The problem with Brandon Berg's theory is that however much women might *wish* to do no more than delay having children, peak fertility falls off steeply from the late 20s, and, on the assumption that these childbirth delaying women are even able to find willing, committed partners when they get around to it (an often suspect assumption, given the preference of high-flying males for younger women), a very large number of those women who thought they were only delaying will find that their window of opportunity has already slipped by. A 35-year old woman who hasn't had a child will count herself fortunate if she subsequently bears one healthy infant, let alone two or more.

[Frank McGahon]

Sure, which is why I hedged by saying "at very least overstated". In a trivial sense, so long as we're discounting the future a delay is the same as (some sort of) decline and it is true that longer delays will lead to declining fertility rates at the margin. But, I think the main point is that the rate can appear more alarming than it is simply by the way it is measured.

[John]

Frank,

No statistic is a perfect model of the real world, but the fertility rate is a reasonable estimate.

The first time I thought about this was when I was in Italy at a conference (around 1997). An Italian man asked me where I was living and when I said Dublin, he was excited. "Dublin is so alive. So young. You have children and young people. Italy is a museum". After that, I started looking around and it was clear there were fewer children.

Of course, the need for young people is exacerbated by the welfare state. If not for the retirement age - 60 in Italy - and the fact that most pensions are state pensions, not private, this would be far less serious. But, so far there is little indication that Italy is addressing this problem.

Young people are more likely to be entrepreneurs and to defend society (either as police or in the military). Even if retirement is raised to 70, that's not going to increase the pool for military service.

That means large scale immigration is required. And, that won't be from Latin America or E. Asia, where most countries are now at replacement level fertility rates.

That means they'll come from SW Asia and/or Africa. All well and good so long as current fertility rates don't change in those regions, which is no sure thing.

It's also true that Europeans may change and more children will be born in the coming decades. Nothing is certain, but the current trends are bad.

[Frank McGahon]

The first time I thought about this was when I was in Italy at a conference (around 1997). An Italian man asked me where I was living and when I said Dublin, he was excited. "Dublin is so alive. So young. You have children and young people. Italy is a museum". After that, I started looking around and it was clear there were fewer children.

But you know what they say about data not being the plural of anecdote. That man's characterisation of Italy as a museum is a bit over the top, perhaps consciously so. I can easily counter that anecdote with my own by describing the buzzing playground my kids played in when we visited Rome in 2004. The point is that sometimes statistics can be misleading.

Of course, the need for young people is exacerbated by the welfare state. If not for the retirement age - 60 in Italy - and the fact that most pensions are state pensions, not private, this would be far less serious. But, so far there is little indication that Italy is addressing this problem.

Well these problems aren't going to go away. It might even be the case that a decline in fertility is what it will take to make people face this issue.

[Frank McGahon]

Oh, by the way:

That means large scale immigration is required. And, that won't be from Latin America or E. Asia, where most countries are now at replacement level fertility rates.

Er, this doesn't logically follow. Immigration is driven by whether the country to which people are immigrating is more attractive than the one they propose to leave behind. The fertility rate is not relevant. It can't have escaped your notice that one of the most prominent immigrant groups to Ireland come from a country with declining fertility - Poland.

[Abiola]

"I think the main point is that the rate can appear more alarming than it is simply by the way it is measured"

Again, this is only true if one can reasonably expect a future bulge in childbirths amongst older cohorts, an assumption which is simply not borne out by time series data anywhere in the developed world: female fertility rates have been too low for too long for the numbers to be a statistical mirage.