Global Fertility Decline
Sustained falls in fertility during relatively peaceful times first occurred in late eighteenth-century Europe. Prior to this, fertility decline had always been linked to war, famine, disease and disaster. During the interwar period (1918–1939), Europe again was the first to experience, in some countries, non-catastrophic sub-replacement fertility, leading to eventual population stabilisation and then decline. However, the post-Second World War ‘Baby Boom’ halted this trend. Nevertheless, in recent decades, fertility has again been declining, but not just in Europe. Affecting nearly all of the MEDCs, it is now also evident in many LEDCs. This article examines the spatial pattern of fertility decline, its causes and the potential consequences.
Figure 1.
World map showing projected total fertility rate by 2050.
Introduction
Fertility began to decline in many countries in the 1960s, and from the 1980s an increasing number of European nations, and some Asian countries, achieved a very low fertility rate indeed (below 1.5 per woman). Global fertility has dropped by half since 1972, from an average of nearly six children per woman to 2.8 today. According to demographers, the rate is still declining. The world’s population, currently 6.4 billion, will continue to grow to about 9 billion in 2050 because a large percentage of the population in LEDCs are of, or will reach, childbearing age over the next two decades. This is a phenomenon known as population momentum. However, after 2050 the world population will go into a considerable decline. By then, most of the world will have a total fertility rate of less than two children per woman (Figures 1 and 2). Already, some regions are suffering from depopulation as a result of falling fertility (Figure 3). According to UN estimates:
· Germany could see its population drop by almost twenty per cent over the next 40 years.
· Japan could lose a quarter of its 127 million population over the same time period.
· In Russia, President Putin has referred to the country’s natural decrease as a ‘national crisis’.
Figure 2.
Graph showing projected total fertility rate decline 2000–2050.
The global spread of sub-replacement fertility
A total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 children per woman is the replacement level fertility below which populations eventually start falling. The average woman needs to have two children to replace her and the father. The extra 0.1 (of the 2.1) is for girls who die before reaching reproductive age. However, Europe’s total fertility rate is only 1.4, well below replacement level. In fact, nearly all the MEDCs of the world—North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand—as well as the East Asian NICs of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, are in the sub-replacement fertility category as well. Israel, with a TFR of 2.9, is the exception, but the USA and New Zealand are only just below replacement level (both have a TFR of 2.0). It seems that much of the developed world is in what Ron Lesthaege and Dirk van de Kaa have called ‘the second demographic transition’. This is the change to smaller family sizes and less stable family unions.
Figure 4 shows how crude birth rate, crude death rate, rate of natural change and the total fertility rate vary by world region. At this scale, the range is from Africa’s 5.1 to Europe’s 1.4. However, continental averages can mask considerable variations within continents.
Figure 3.
A deserted village on the Greek island of Lemnos, the result of depopulation.
Figure 4. Table showing birth rate, death rate, rate of natural increase and TFR by world region.
Birth Rate / Death Rate / Rate of Natural Increase / Total Fertility RateWorld / 21 / 9 / 1.3 / 2.8
Africa / 38 / 14 / 2.4 / 5.1
North America / 14 / 8 / 0.5 / 2.0
Latin America and the Caribbean / 22 / 6 / 1.6 / 2.6
Oceania / 17 / 7 / 1.0 / 2.1
Asia / 20 / 7 / 1.3 / 2.6
Europe / 10 / 12 / -0.2 / 1.4
Source: 2004 World Population Data Sheet of the Population Reference Bureau.
Figure 5 shows significant regional variation within Africa, while Figure 6 shows variation within Europe.
Figure 5. Table showing regional birth and fertility rates in Africa.
Region / Birth Rate / Total Fertility RateNorthern Africa / 26 / 3.4
Western Africa / 42 / 5.8
Eastern Africa / 41 / 5.7
Middle Africa / 45 / 6.4
Southern Africa / 25 / 2.9
Source: 2004 World Population Data Sheet of the Population Reference Bureau.
Figure 6. Table showing regional birth and fertility rates in Europe.
Region / Birth Rate / Total Fertility RateNorthern Europe / 12 / 1.7
Western Europe / 11 / 1.6
Eastern Europe / 10 / 1.3
Southern Europe / 10 / 1.3
Source: 2004 World Population Data Sheet of the Population Reference Bureau.
In Europe, northern and western Europe have significantly higher fertility rates than eastern and southern Europe, and Figure 7 identifies a number of individual countries illustrating the full range of global fertility. The highest TFR in the world is eight in the West African country of Niger. The crude birth rate in Niger is 55/1000.
In 2001, the crude birth rate for the UK was 11.4/1000, the lowest ever recorded. This resulted in 669,000 births during that year, 38 per cent fewer than 100 years earlier. The particularly low number of births in recent years is due to two factors:
· Lower fertility rates.
· Fewer women entering their peak reproductive years than in previous decades, a result of the smaller numbers of women born in the 1970s.
The total fertility rate in 2001 was 1.63, down from 1.81 in 1991.
Figure 7.
Bar graph showing TFR in a selection of eight countries.
Source: 2004 World Population Data Sheet
Figure 8.
A school in Morocco, where 31 per cent of the population is under 15.
However, sub-replacement fertility is no longer confined to the developed world. According to the US Census Bureau, around half of the world’s population live in sub-replacement countries. This includes:
· All of East Asia, apart from Mongolia.
· Thailand and Burma in southeast Asia.
· Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka in south-central Asia.
· Many Caribbean countries.
· Most South American countries.
Perhaps the greatest surprise (as traditional religious attitudes are usually seen as a barrier against low fertility) is the onset of sub-replacement fertility in the Islamic world (Figure 8). Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Iran and Turkey are all now in this category. In Iran, the fall in fertility has been remarkably rapid. Between 1986 and 2000 the country’s TFR fell from over six to just over two. It is now under 1.9. China’s TFR has declined from 5.8 in 1970 to 1.8 today.
According to B. Wattenberg, author of Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape our Future, ‘Never in the last 650 years, since the time of the Black Plague, have birth and fertility rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long, in so many places’. Reiner Klingholz, director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, predicts that ‘parts of Eastern Europe, already sparsely populated, will just empty out’. Figure 9 shows how global fertility rates have already converged and how this trend will become even more pronounced over the next half century.
Figure 9.
Graph showing converging fertility rate of MEDCs, LEDCs and least-developed countries.
America’s ‘demographic exceptionalism’
The USA has a significantly higher fertility rate than the rest of the developed world. At present it is between 2.0 and 2.1, just under replacement level. This contrasts with Europe’s 1.4, Australia’s 1.7, Canada’s 1.5 and Japan’s 1.3. Only New Zealand at 2.0 is similar in fertility level to the USA. The result of a difference in TFR of 2.0 and 1.4, with other factors staying equal, is a contrast between virtual long-term population stability and a population that falls by almost a third with each passing generation. It is difficult to determine exactly why the TFR rate is higher in the USA than in most other developed nations. Some writers see Americans as a more religious and optimistic people than most other rich nations, leading to a desire for more children.
However, it is also likely that the USA will maintain a high rate of immigration, giving it a rising rather than a falling population. B. Wattenberg estimates that the USA will gain 100 million people over the next 45 years while Europe will lose roughly this amount. As a result, the USA will age much more slowly than Europe and Japan.
The causes of fertility decline
Fertility decline has been ascribed to a number of converging trends but the factors contributing to decline clearly vary from place to place. The literature on the subject points to the following:
· Urbanisation: there is a high inverse correlation between increasing urbanisation and declining fertility (Figure 10). The crux of the matter here is that while children are often seen as an economic asset in rural areas, particularly in LEDCs, they are much more of an economic cost in towns and cities.
· Female literacy and enrolment in schools: there is a very strong relationship between increasing female literacy and falling fertility. With literacy comes an increased knowledge and understanding of contraception; later marriage as more females stay on in school and in higher education; and later childbirth and fewer births as more women pursue careers.
· Contraception: UN data shows a sharp increase in the use of contraception in the last decade, with 62 per cent of married women or ‘in union’ women of reproductive age using some form of non-natural birth control. Among the less developed regions, Latin America has the highest rate of contraceptive use (Figure 11).
· Affluence and increasing material expectations: it seems that as societies become more affluent, the desire for material possessions increases. More and more couples are opting to improve their lifestyles rather than starting or extending a family. In Wattenberg’s opinion, ‘Capitalism is the best contraceptive’.
· High housing costs: in some countries, such as the UK, it is much more difficult to get on the first rung of the housing ladder than it was twenty years ago. This can result in couples postponing marriage and the start of a family.
· Abortion: the termination of pregnancies has increased in many countries.
· Divorce: as divorce rates have increased sharply in many countries, more people never have children or have fewer children than if they had remained with their (first) husband or wife.
· Disease: in countries with high rates of HIV/AIDS, the impact on fertility has been significant.
· Infertility: it appears that infertility is on the increase in many countries. An example of this is in Russia, where experts have blamed alcoholism, poor public health and industrial pollution for poor male sperm counts.
· Global pessimism: A recent article in the magazine Newsweek was entitled ‘Bad time to be born: gloom is driving down birthrates among Asian Tigers’. The author of the article, George Wehrfritz, argues that pessimism is a potent contraceptive and that recent events such as the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis, the 9/11 attack on America and other terrorist outrages, and the Iraq war have led to a growing sense of unease and uncertainty that has influenced fertility in some countries.
Figure 10.
Graph showing the relationship between the global fertility rate and the increase in urban population.
Figure 11.
The use of contraceptives in less-developed regions.
Source: 2004 World Population Data Sheet
As falling fertility is now seen as a significant problem in so many countries, the subject has become a major research area. Research in Italy has noted the increasing time gap in the stages of adult life before childbearing (Figure 12) due to prolonged education, the rising age of leaving home, high youth unemployment and the changing social norm towards later marriage. All this leaves fewer years for women to have children. This situation undoubtedly applies to other MEDCs as well. Lower fertility rates are due to deliberate decisions by individuals to have fewer births, but also due to a postponement of births that results in many planned future births never occurring.
Another research project looked at the difference between the relatively high fertility in Nordic nations compared to most other European countries. The tentative conclusion was that the ‘relative generosity of Nordic family policies’, which reduced both the direct and indirect costs of having children, presented lower financial barriers to starting and extending families. It seems that good family policies are necessary, but they are not sufficient to counteract other negative factors on their own.
In Japan, men and women are marrying later, with a growing number opting to stay single well into their 30s. Once married, most couples have either one or two children. In Japan, the cost of supporting a child from birth through graduation from university is about £95,000.
A major explanation for the fall in fertility in eastern and central Europe is the economic hardship experienced by many people after the collapse of communist regimes. In many of these countries, unemployment is high and wages are low. Under communism, unemployment did not exist, at least in theory.