The alarms on the birth rate they follow one another and are similar: in Italy as in many other parts of the world, including China. Generally in democratic countries those in the opposition accuse those in government of not doing enough to help women, to support families, to promote births. (There may not be an opposition in China, but the government is worried anyway.)
The so-called experts, who a few years earlier were shouting disaster over the “demographic bomb” and “overpopulation”, are now shouting screams of terror over “depopulation”, and so on.
In the midst of so much useless noise, it is a nice surprise to find a lucid, precise, factual analysis. She wrote it John Burn Murdoch on the Financial Times. It is a synthesis of various studies on the birth rate, which converge on this conclusion: aid for young women, future mothers, or couples, is a good thing in itself but does not influence the decision to have children at all. The economic aspect is irrelevantin that decision.
This should be quite obvious, it is a common sense conclusion, in the face of an empirical observation: fertility and birth rates remain higher in poorer countries, so it is certainly not the lack of means that justifies the collapse of births in rich countries.
They are fundamental instead of cultural factors. The most important of all seems to be confidence in the future. Why should a generation convinced that it is on the eve of the Apocalypse, or that it lives in an evil civilization, in a hellish world marked by the worst injustices, have children? To condemn them to hell?
Another cultural factor can be summarized in the exaggerated and overprotective concept of rights of the unborn child: if this creature has to absorb maximum attention, care, investments in education, the bar is perhaps a little too high, parental responsibility makes the veins in the wrists tremble. So far I have summarized in my own words.
Here is the summary of the studies on birth rate and demographics collected by Burn-Murdoch. From 1980 to 2019, the number of rich and developed countries tripled (net of inflation, therefore in real purchasing power) per capita aid for birth rates: family allowances, free nursery schools, maternity-paternity permits, and other public subsidies. In the same period, the number of births fell inexorably, on average from 1.85 to 1.53 for each woman.
There Finland it is an egalitarian country, with very generous welfare. It has one of the most advanced systems in the world to assist and support families (traditional and otherwise) who want to have children. Despite this, Finland’s fertility rate has fallen by a third since 2010. Hungary, which for ideological reasons does everything to promote births, has reached an all-time low. In South Korea the government launched a generous program of payments to those who have children, called “baby bonus”: the balance is simple, that program paid women who had already decided to have them on their own, while it did not change the trend of declining birth rate which continues undaunted.
As you can see there are no differences between left-wing (Finland) and right-wing (Hungary) policies, nor between East and West.
The author of this summary comments: «The link between births and public spending on family-friendly policies is negligible. It turns out that the decision whether to have children or not, and how many to have, is influenced by many other things rather than money.” This does not mean that it is wrong to give help to mothers or future mothers. It may be right for many reasons. It can make life a little easier for those women who have decided to have children anyway, a laudable goal in itself. It can help reduce child poverty in low-income families. All good things, just don’t delude yourself that they will help reverse the trend towards a declining birth rate. «Cultural factors intervene upstream in decisionslong before the costs of raising a child are taken into consideration.”
A study of Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zillibotti of 2019, entitled Money and Parenting: How Economics Explain the Way We Raise Our Kids, is used for its illuminating conclusions. He cites the widespread belief among the younger generations that to give a child a satisfactory future one must take great care of him or her, guarantee him the maximum attention of his parents, and invest in a superlative level education, in unbridled competition with other people’s children. The challenge, described in terms so demanding as to be almost frightening, ends up appearing unattainable to many. Better to settle for a “normal” life, as a single or married without children, rather than take on a similar responsibility.
In parallel, another cultural evolution has shifted life priorities for young adults. In 1993, 61% of Americans surveyed in the Pew Research he said that having children is important for a fulfilling life; today only 26% agree with that statement. Young women in particular have shifted priorities to put “personal growth” and “professional career” at the top. Fears related to excess responsibility as parents figure significantly among the reasons for not having children. Economic costs appear only in 14th place.
Finally, the level of anguish of the younger generations comes into play. «The more a potential mother worries about the future, the less she wants to have children. In America, in Europe, in the Far East, the generation under thirty is more afraid of the future and more stressed than other generations.”
I conclude with the Chinathis time drawing on the story of Peter Hessler in the magazine The New Yorker of April 8, 2024. Even before being a correspondent in China for that weekly, Hessler had taught English at a university in Sichuan. He has remained in contact with his former students and often consults them to understand the mood of Chinese youth. Almost none of them have had or want to have children. Negative responses reach the maximum among girls: 76%. This empirical survey, on a limited sample, coincides with the results of other larger investigations. Moreover, it is known that China has entered a phase of population decline due to a collapse in births. The measures taken by the government were of no avail. The Beijing authorities have quickly moved from the “one child” policy to the freedom to have two or three children. Finally from freedom the regime has switched to incentives: now pay mothers to have babies. The results are unremarkable.
Here is the explanation offered by a former student of Hassler: «I think that Chinese children are stressed and upset. We are already a troubled generation. Raising children requires long periods of companionship and observation and guidance, all of which are difficult to achieve in a context of intense social pressure. The future of Chinese society is an unknown. Children do not ask us to be brought into the world. I am afraid that my potential children are not warriors, and will end up getting lost.”
The China I lived in (2004-2009) was a much more optimistic and confident nation in its future. Today’s, in the mentality of young people, seems much more similar to the West. Policies in favor of birth rates are a false problem.
