“Baby bust”? No, just a much-needed fertility transition

Governments across the Global North are panicking over low birth rates because of their potential dampening effects on economic growth. But we must embrace fertility decline as a vital stepping stone to a more sustainable future.

The push for more babies is prevalent across the political spectrum, including here in the United States, manifesting in diverse ways, from derogatory comments about “childless cat ladies,” to abortion restrictions, to, most commonly, financial incentives for childbearing, such as baby bonuses and tax credits for larger families. While the latter can certainly benefit families, they don’t actually work as intended.

There are other types of pronatalist policies that have plenty of merit outside of their procreational intentions, including generous paid parental leave and affordable childcare. These too have largely been ineffective at increasing birth rates — even the countries with the most family-friendly policies (the top three are Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, according to a UN report) all have fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.

What baby shortage?

The ineffectiveness of policies designed to increase births is not why politicians should stop fretting about fertility decline, however. The most obvious reason is that population growth simply has to end. The push for more babies is rooted in the flawed notion that populations can and should keep growing indefinitely. What pronatalists don’t seem to understand is that to have a chance of surviving on a finite planet, we must go through a low-fertility transition.

The many “baby bust” and “fertility crisis” headlines are even more absurd when you look at the global demographic picture. According to the latest UN population projections released in July this year, we are on track to peak above 10 billion people in the 2080s, with no significant decline for the remainder of the century. Approaching 2100 with a global population of 10 billion or more is a very concerning thought in light of the escalating climate crisis, looming resource shortages, and catastrophic biodiversity loss.

Our current population of 8.2 billion is already using up the Earth’s natural resources almost twice as fast as they can be regenerated. This means that at current consumption levels, our population would need to be no more than half its current size to be sustainable. Not to mention that global consumption is increasing rapidly, largely due to rising incomes in populous lower-middle-income countries (which is of course a positive development).

Our demographic destiny is not set in stone, however – small deviations from projected fertility rates over the next few decades could result in a vastly different population size in 2100. A different set of population projections by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) published in 2020 forecasts a population size of 8.8 billion by century’s end because the researchers expect lower future fertility rates than the UN demographers. But even this “low” number represents an increase from today’s population size, so “population collapse” warnings from pronatalist influencers like Elon Musk are very detached from reality.

Low birth rates reflect women’s empowerment

The fact that humanity has managed to voluntarily slow its population growth is a remarkable achievement that should be celebrated — the main reason for fertility decline is that women have been gaining more control over their bodies and lives. The trend is the same wherever you look: removing barriers to family planning, girls’ education, and women’s participation in the workforce leads to a shrinkage in the average family size. A small family size is desirable for both parents for countless reasons, not least because it places less strain on their time, freedoms, finances, and energy levels.

There is so much more work to do, however — almost half of partnered women in low- and middle-income countries still have no decision-making power over their own bodies, and 257 million women worldwide have an unmet need for modern contraception. As a result, half of all pregnancies globally are unintended.

Lower population projections generally assume accelerated progress towards empowering women and girls around the world — a more sustainable, happier, healthier future population is within reach if we ramp up efforts to close the gender funding gap.

Is low fertility really so bad for the economy?

One of the primary reasons mainstream economists (and the governments they influence) fear low birth rates is because a smaller influx of babies leads to a growing proportion of older people. Population aging brings socioeconomic challenges because it can mean a shrinking workforce and more dependents. But children are also dependents, and for much longer, on average, than elderly people are. Kids in advanced economies typically aren’t economically productive for their first 20 years or so, while senior citizens often contribute to society (including through unpaid but essential caregiving and volunteering) until the very end of their lives.

Arguably, rapid population aging shouldn’t be blamed on a “baby bust,” real or imagined, but on the unsustainable “baby booms” of the past. In other words, it’s not that birth rates today are too low — rather, it’s that they used to be too high, which, aided by increasing longevity, is now manifesting as a bulge in the retirement-age population. Nevertheless, who or what is responsible for population aging is irrelevant. What matters is how we react to it.

A study published in Annual Review of Economics earlier this year provides a comprehensive review of economic concerns over fertility decline and explains why they are exaggerated. The researchers argue that a smaller family size allows for greater resource allocation per child (a so-called “quantity-quality trade-off”), which helps increase children’s chances of becoming productive members of society.

The study points out that there are available policy measures that can counter potential negative impacts of low fertility on economies. Even better, most of these measures would improve lives and benefit whole societies. The answer lies in investing in people, especially in their education and health. Maximizing existing children’s prospects and keeping older people healthy and active for as long as possible is surely a more worthwhile investment than trying to convince couples to have more babies.

Prioritizing people over profit might, in some cases, even succeed where pronatalist policies have failed. While survey data suggests that one of the main reasons people aren’t having (more) kids is because they just don’t want to, some do express a desire to become parents or to grow their families but feel unable to for a whole range of reasons, from financial limitations to concerns over the state of the world. Improving all aspects of quality of life and ensuring a safer future would likely help people in this category get closer to their family size goals.