Sub-replacement fertility is a

total fertility rate The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if: # she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime # she were t ...

(TFR) that (if sustained) leads to each new

generation A generation refers to all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It can also be described as, "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and gr ...

being less populous than the older, previous one in a given area. The

United Nations Population Division The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) is part of the United Nations Secretariat and is responsible for the follow-up to major United Nations Summits and Conferences, as well as services to the United Nations Ec ...

defines sub-replacement fertility as any rate below approximately 2.1 children born per woman of childbearing age, but the threshold can be as high as 3.4 in some developing countries because of higher

mortality rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of d ...

s., Introduction and Table 1, p. 580 Taken globally, the total fertility rate at replacement was 2.33 children per woman in 2003. This can be "translated" as 2 children per woman to replace the parents, plus a "third of a child" to make up for the higher probability of males born and mortality prior to the end of a person's fertile life. In 2020, the average global fertility rate was around 2.4 children born per woman. Replacement-level fertility in terms of the

net reproduction rate In population ecology and demography, the net reproduction rate, ''R''0, is the average number of offspring (often specifically daughters) that would be born to a female if she passed through her lifetime conforming to the age-specific fertility ...

(NRR) is exactly one, because the NRR takes both mortality rates and sex ratios at birth into account. As of 2010, about 48% (3.3 billion people) of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility. Nonetheless most of these countries still have growing populations due to

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

population momentum Population momentum is a consequence of the demographic transition. Population momentum explains why a population will continue to grow even if the fertility rate declines. Population momentum occurs because it is not only the number of children per ...

and increase of the

life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...

. This includes most nations of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and many others. In 2016, all

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

countries had a sub-replacement fertility rate, ranging from a low of 1.3 in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

to a high of 2.0 in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The countries or areas that have the lowest fertility are in developed parts of East and Southeast Asia:

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. Only a few countries have had, for the time being, sufficiently sustained sub-replacement fertility (sometimes combined with other population factors like higher

emigration Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanent ...

than

) to have population decline, such as

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

, and

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. As of 2020, the total fertility rate varied from 0.84 in

to 7.0 in

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languages The fact that more people are going to colleges and universities, and are working to obtain more post-graduate degrees there, along with the soaring costs of education, have contributed greatly to postponing marriage in many cases, and bearing children at all, or fewer numbers of children. And the fact that the number of women getting higher education has increased has contributed to fewer of them getting married younger, if at all. In the US, for example, females make up more than half of all college students, which is a reversal from a few decades back. The relationship between higher education and childbearing varies by country: for example, in Switzerland by age 40, childlessness among women who had completed

tertiary education Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...

is 40%, while in France it is only 15%. In some countries, childlessness has a longer tradition, and was common even before educational levels increased, but in others, such as

Southern European Southern Europe is the southern region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Alba ...

ones, it is a recent phenomenon; for instance in Spain the childlessness rate for women aged 40–44 in 2011 was 21.60%, but historically throughout the 20th century it was around 10%. Not all countries show a relationship between low fertility and education: in

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, of women born in 1961–1965, low educated women were more likely to be childless than high educated women. In the United States in 2019, women with a graduate or professional degree had the highest birthrate (61 births per 1,000 women), whereas women with less than a high school graduate had the lowest birthrate (34 births per 1,000 women) among all levels of educational attainment of the mother.

Economic fluctuation

The growth of

wealth Wealth is the abundance of Value (economics), valuable financial assets or property, physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for financial transaction, transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the ...

and

human development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body * Developmental psychology * Human development (economics) * Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development * Human evolution Human evoluti ...

are related to sub-replacement fertility, although a sudden drop in living conditions, such as the

great depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, can also lower fertility. In Eastern European countries, the fall of communism was followed by an economic collapse in many of these countries in the 1990s. Some countries, such as those that experienced violent conflicts in the 1990s, were badly affected. Large numbers of people lost their jobs, and massive unemployment, lack of jobs outside the big cities, and economic uncertainty discourages people from having children. For instance, in

Bosnia-Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and Pars pro toto#Geography, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of Southern Europe, south and southeast Euro ...

, the total fertility rate in 2016 was only 1.28 children born/woman.

Urbanization

Some consider the increase of

urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...

around the world a central cause. In recent times, residents of urban areas tend to have fewer children than people in rural areas. The need for extra labour from children on farms does not apply to urban-dwellers. Cities tend to have higher property prices, making a large family more expensive, especially in those societies where each child is now expected to have their own bedroom, rather than sharing with siblings as was the case until recently. Rural areas also tend to be more conservative, with less

contraception Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...

and

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...

than urban areas.

Reduction of child labour

Countries which have a high fertility rate are usually less developed countries, where families rely on children to help them, with labour such as agricultural work, tending to livestock, or even paid work. In such countries

child labour Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...

is quite common, with children bringing money at home, or actively supporting the family through physical work. By contrast, in high-income nations, child labour is banned, and it is parents who invest very high costs into their children.

Views on the "ideal" family

Although fertility rates are often discussed in terms of state policies (e.g. financial benefits, combining work with family etc.), the deeply entrenched social views on what constitutes an "ideal" family may play a crucial role: if parents do not envision large families in a positive way, it is difficult to "convince" them to have many children. In this regard, there are major differences between European countries: while 50.23% of women aged 15–39 state that the "ideal" family has 3 or more children in

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, and 46.43% say this in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

; only 11.3% say this in

, and 11.39% in

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

Contraception

Changes in

are also an important cause, and one that has seen dramatic changes in the last few generations. Legalization and widespread acceptance of contraception in the developed world is a large factor in decreased fertility levels; however, for instance in a European context where its prevalence has always been very high in the modern era, the fertility rates do not seem to be influenced significantly by availability of contraception. While contraception can reduce the number of unwanted births and contribute to a smaller ideal family size, contraception does not start fertility reductions nor substantially effect their size, with these being attributable to other factors.

Assisted reproductive technology

The availability of assisted reproductive technology (ART) may foster delay of childbearing, because many couples think that it can solve any future fertility problems. Its effect on total fertility rate is extremely small but government support for it is beneficial for families.

Human Development Index

2014_UN_Human_Development_Report_Quartiles

The

Human Development Index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...

(HDI) is a composite statistic of

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

, and

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of

. A country scores higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the

level is higher, and the GDP per capita is higher. There is a strong inverse correlation between the HDI and the fertility rate of the population: the higher the HDI, the lower the fertility rate. As of 2016, the countries with the highest fertility rate are Burundi, Mali, Somalia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Malawi, Angola, and Afghanistan; while most high-income countries have sub-replacement fertility rates. This is part of the fertility-income paradox, as these high fertility countries are very poor, and it may seem counter-intuitive for families there to have so many children. The inverse relationship between income and fertility has been termed a ''demographic-economic "

paradox A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...

"'' by the notion that greater means would enable the production of more offspring as suggested by the influential

Thomas Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book '' An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Mal ...

Government policies

Some governments have launched programmes to reduce fertility rates and curb population growth. The People's Republic of China implemented a

one-child policy The term one-child policy () refers to a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1980 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. That initiative was part of a much br ...

for 35 years (from 1979 to 2015); this was relaxed to a two-child policy in 2016 and relaxed further to a three child policy in 2021. Danshan Nongguang Village Bulletin board

Danshan Nongguang Village Bulletin board

Although today Singapore has a low fertility rate, and the government encourages parents to have more children because birth rates have fallen below the replacement rate, in the 1970s the situation was the opposite: the government wished to slow and reverse the boom in births that started after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Ability to choose

The total fertility rate is also influenced by the ability to choose what type of family to have, if and when to have children, and the number of children to have - free from coercion, pressure, or interference from the community, extended family, state or church. This includes prohibition on practices such as

child marriage Child marriage is a marriage or similar union, formal or informal, between a child under a certain age – typically 18 years – and an adult or another child. * * * * The vast majority of child marriages are between a female child and a mal ...

forced marriage Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without their consent or against their will. A marriage can also become a forced marriage even if both parties enter with full consent if one or both are later force ...

bride price Bride price, bride-dowry ( Mahr in Islam), bride-wealth, or bride token, is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the woman or the family of the woman he will be married to or is just about to marry. Bride dow ...

. In some cultures for instance, the payment of the bride price creates an obligation on the wife to have children, and failure to do so often results in threats and violence. High-income countries have substantially lower fertility rates, and increased

childlessness Childlessness is the state of not having children. Childlessness may have personal, social or political significance. Childlessness, which may be by choice or circumstance, is distinguished from voluntary childlessness, which is voluntarily havi ...

, because people who remain childless or who have small families are less likely to be stigmatized. In many cultures childless women suffer discrimination, stigma, ostracism, and social isolation.

War

It has been shown, both historically and in the present day, that societies engaged in a prolonged state of war experience a substantial lag in fertility rate. The most notable examples of this phenomenon are accredited to the First and Second World Wars. Modeled by these examples,

total war Total war is a type of warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combata ...

subjects individuals to intense social upheavals and a heavy psychological impact that forcefully prioritizes survival and economic stability over the need to reproduce for the duration of the conflict. Events like these subsequently pave way for an active effort to repopulate, such as the "baby boom" after the Second World War.

Tempo effect

Total fertility rate (TFR) is affected by a phenomenon called the tempo effect, which describes "distortions due to changes in the timing of births."

John Bongaarts John P. M. Bongaarts (born 1945) is a Dutch-American demographer. He serves as Vice-President and Distinguished Scholar at the Population Council, where he has worked since the 1970s. Bongaart has performed research in a diverse set of topics, such ...

and Griffith Feeney have suggested that this tempo effect is driving the decline of measured fertility rate in the developed world. Specifically, the trend in developed countries of having children at later ages can cause the TFR to be underestimated. For example, as measured by the Human Fertility Database the United States adjusted total fertility rates have been at replacement levels since 1992.

Type of partnership

A study of the United States and multiple countries in Europe came to the result that women who continue to

cohabit Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not married, usually couples, live together. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become increas ...

rather than get married after birth have significantly lower probability of having a second child than married women in all countries except those in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

. Another study, on the contrary, came to the result that cohabiting couples in

have equal fertility as married ones. A large survey in the United States came to the result that married women had an average of 1.9 children, compared to 1.3 among those cohabiting. The corresponding numbers for men were 1.7 and 1.1, respectively. The difference of 0.6 children for both sexes was expected to decrease to between 0.2 and 0.3 over the lifetime when correcting for the

confounder In statistics, a confounder (also confounding variable, confounding factor, extraneous determinant or lurking variable) is a variable that influences both the dependent variable and independent variable, causing a spurious association. Con ...

that married people have their children earlier in life. In the United States, those who cohabit without marrying had increased fertility when the male earns considerably more than the female.

Frequency of sex

Another explanation for falling fertility could be a reduction in the frequency of sex. For example, according to the Japan Family Planning Association 2016 survey, 47.3% of the men and 47.1% of the women had not had sex with their spouse in the previous month.

High investment per child

People are more likely in modern society to invest strongly in the needs of their children, such as offering them the best education, shelter (a room only for the child), travel, cultural activities etc. In the past, when child mortality was high, people had more children, but invested less in them. Today, parents usually experience much less doubt about whether the child will live to adulthood, and so are more likely to strongly invest in that child. But strongly investing in each child makes it more difficult to have large numbers of children—a "quantity vs. quality trade-off" effect.

Gender expectations and norms

Social norms both within the family and in society at large determine fertility levels. The quality of couple relations in terms of support given to the woman matters, with studies on fertility in the high-income world showing a U-shaped relationship between

gender equity Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...

within the couple and fertility: in countries with very low fertility rates, the probability of a woman to have the second child occurs at the extremes - either very low gender equality or very high gender equality. This is also reflected at a social level: countries that are neither sufficiently patriarchal to coerce women into having large families, nor sufficiently egalitarian to incentivize women to have more children through strong support (such as subsidized childcare and good support of working mothers), have very low fertility rates, especially among educated women. Where women are expected to 'choose' between their professional and public life, or having children, the more educated the woman is, the more likely she is to choose the former. The strong emphasis on the domestic role of women in Germany (unlike Scandinavia and France) was described as the cause of the very low fertility in that country.

Historical effects

The

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

historian Polybius largely blamed the decline of the

Hellenistic world In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...

on low fertility rates, writing in his work ''The Histories'' that: In a speech to

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

nobles, the Emperor

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...

commented on the low birthrates of the Roman elite: Upon the establishment of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

would introduce

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to ...

to increase the birthrates of the Roman nobility. Some believe that not only the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

, but the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, may have been the result of a decline in birthrates overall. Clarence L. Barber, an economist at the University of Manitoba, pointed out how demand for housing in the US, for example, began to decline in 1926, due to a decline in 'household formation' (marriage), due, he believed, to the effects of World War I upon society. In early 1929, US housing demand declined precipitously and the stock market crash followed in October of that same year.

Attempts to increase the fertility rate

One of the most forceful attempts to increase the TFR occurred in communist Romania between 1967 and 1990. Communist leader

Nicolae Ceaușescu Nicolae Ceaușescu ( , ; – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He ...

adopted a very aggressive natalist policy that included outlawing abortion and contraception, routine pregnancy tests for women, taxes on childlessness, and legal discrimination against childless people. This period was depicted in movies and documentaries (such as '' 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days'', ''

Children of the Decree A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

''). These policies increased birth rates during the period of policy implementation, but was followed by a decline due to increased

illegal abortion Abortion laws vary widely among countries and territories, and have changed over time. Such laws range from abortion being freely available on request, to regulation or restrictions of various kinds, to outright prohibition in all circumstances ...

. Ceaușescu's policy resulted in over 9,000 women who died due to illegal abortions, large numbers of children put into orphanages by parents who could not cope with raising them, street children in the 1990s (when many orphanages were closed and the children ended on the streets), and overcrowding in homes and schools. In addition, Ceaușescu's demographic policies are feared of having very serious effects in the future, because the generations born under Ceaușescu are large (especially the late 1960s and the 1970s), while those born in the 1990s and 2000s are very small. This is believed to cause a very serious demographic shock when the former generations

retire Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload. Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...

, as there will be insufficient young people in the workforce to support the elderly. Apart from Romania, a relatively similar policy of restricted

reproductive rights Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst countries around the world. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows: Reproductive rights rest o ...

during that period also existed in

Communist Albania The People's Socialist Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë, links=no) was the Marxist–Leninist one party state that existed in Albania from 1946 to 1992 (the official name of the country was the People's R ...

, under Enver Hoxha (see

Abortion in Albania Abortion in Albania was fully legalized on December 7, 1995.
Nr. 8045, data 07. 12. 1995, që është mbështetje e nenit të ...

). In 2002, the government of Australia gave financial incentives to parents to have more children. This Baby Bonus was introduced explicitly to increase the birth rate. The birth rate in Australia did increase in the years after (see below).

Current effects

Population aging may pose an economic challenge to governments as the number of retired citizens drawing public pensions rises in relation to the number of workers. This has been raised as a political issue in

, and the

where many people have advocated policy changes to encourage higher birth and immigration rates. Analysing data for 40 countries, Lee et al. show that typically fertility well above replacement and population growth would be most beneficial for government budgets. Fertility near replacement and population stability, however, would be most beneficial for standards of living when the analysis includes the effects of age structure on families as well as governments. Fertility moderately below replacement and population decline would maximize standards of living when the cost of providing capital for a growing labour force is taken into account.

Forecasts

Sub-replacement fertility does not automatically translate into a population decline because of increasing life expectancy and

: recently high fertility rates produce a disproportionately young population, and younger populations have higher birth rates. This is why some nations with sub-replacement fertility still have a growing population, because a relatively large fraction of their population are still of child-bearing age. But if the fertility trend is sustained (and not compensated by

), it results in population ageing and/or population decline. This is already happening and impacts most of the countries of

and

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

. Current estimates expect the world's total fertility rate to fall below replacement levels by 2050. There are several

projections of population growth Population projections are attempts to show how the human population statistics might change in the future. These projections are an important input to forecasts of the population's impact on this planet and humanity's future well-being. Models o ...

after 2050. The UN Population Division projects the world population, which is 7.8 billion as of 2020, to level out around 2100 at 10.9 billion A 2020 study published by The Lancet from researchers funded by the Global Burden of Disease Study promotes a lower growth scenario, projecting that world population will peak in 2064 at 9.7 billion and then decline to 8.8 billion in 2100. An analysis from the Wittgenstein Center IIASA predicts global population to peak in 2070 at 9.4 billion and then decline to 9.0 billion in 2100. Some governments, fearful of a future pensions crisis, have developed

natalist Natalism (also called pronatalism or the pro-birth position) is an ideology that promotes the reproduction of human life as the preeminent objective of being human. Compare: The term, as it relates to the belief itself, comes from the French wor ...

policies to attempt to encourage more women to have children. Measures include increasing tax allowances for working parents, improving child-care provision, reducing working hours/weekend working in female-dominated professions such as healthcare and a stricter enforcement of anti-discrimination measures to prevent professional women's promotion prospects being hindered when they take time off work to care for children. Over recent years, the fertility rate has increased to around 2.0 in France and 1.9 in Britain and some other northern European countries, but the role of population policies in these trends is debated. In Italy, for example, natalist policies may have actually discouraged the Italian population from having more children. This "widespread resistance" was the result of the Italian government, at one point, taxing single persons and criminalizing abortion and even contraception. European analysts hope, with the help of government incentives and large-scale change towards family-friendly policies, to stall the population decline and reverse it by around 2030, expecting that most of Europe will have a slight natural increase by then. C. D. Howe Institute, for example, tries to demonstrate that immigration cannot be used to effectively counter population ageing.

Cases of fertility rate increases in individual countries

United States

For twenty years, the total fertility rate in the

remained relatively stable compared to much of the world. However, US TFR declined from 2.12 in 2007 to 1.64 in 2020.

Other developed countries

Some other developed countries experienced temporary increases in their birth rate in the first decade of the 21st century before seeing TFR steadily decline to all-time lows in the subsequent decade, including

, which recorded a TFR of over 2.00 in 2008, though it has since declined to 1.8 as 2020; the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

where TFR increased from 1.64 in 2000 to 1.98 in 2010, and then declined to 1.6 in 2020;

, where the birth rate rose from 1.73 in 2001 to 1.93 in 2007 before declining to 1.6 in 2020, and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, where the TFR was 2.2 in 2008 and then declined to 1.6 in 2020.

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

is the only developed country that has never had sub-replacement fertility; a declining

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

and Bedouin fertility rate is countered by

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

groups (mostly Haredim) with higher than average fertility rates. In addition, the (mostly non-religious) aliyah Jews from the former

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

shifted from a 1 child per woman fertility rate to an average fertility rate close to 2.2 children per woman. As of 2008, Israel's Jewish fertility rate is the highest among the industrial nations.

Notes

References

External links

Four Surprises in Global Demography
By Nicholas Eberstadt
Worldwide Total Fertility Rates on the World Bank's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sub-Replacement Fertility Population Human geography Fertility Demographic economic problems