Low fertility in Europe: causes implications and policy options.

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the emergence and persistence of low and particularly lowest-low fertility in Europe analyze its demographic patterns and socioeconomic determinants and address the factors that underlie the divergence of fertility levels in Europe and developed countries more generally. The central thrust of our argument is that the emergence of lowest-low fertility in Europe is due to the combination of four distinct demographic and behavioral factors. First economic and social changes have made the postponement of fertility a rational response for individuals. Second social interaction processes affecting the timing of fertility have rendered the population response to these new socioeconomic conditions substantially larger than the direct individual responses. As a consequence modest socioeconomic changes can explain the rapid and persistent postponement transitions from early to late age-patterns of fertility that have been associated with recent trends towards low and lowest-low fertility. Third demographic distortions of period fertility measures caused by the postponement of fertility and changes in the parity-composition of the population have reduced the level of period fertility indicators below the associated level of cohort fertility (for discussion of this technical aspect see Bongaarts and Feeney 1998; Kohler and Ortega 2002). Fourth institutional settings in Southern Central and Eastern European countries have favored an overall low quantum of fertility. Moreover this institutional setting has caused particularly large reductions in completed fertility in lowest-low fertility countries due to the delay of childbearing. (excerpt)