There is no post-transitional fertility equilibrium

As Coleman and Rowthorn (Reference Coleman and Rowthorn2011, p. 218) noted, until the 1980s the demographic transition theory took for granted that fertility in post-transitional populations would broadly stabilize around the replacement level. Even today, many demographers and policymakers continue seeing fertility around replacement as a desirable long-term goal and some governments design policies aimed at reaching this target. In reality, only a few post-transitional countries have experienced a stabilization of period fertility close to the replacement level and in most of them the TFR declined far below 2 births per woman. For instance, in the European Union the TFR now stands at 1.58 (2014), not much above its low of 1.44 reached in the late 1990s.

Because period fertility rates are often affected by the changes in the timing of births, a clearer picture of post-transitional fertility emerges when analysing the cohort trends. Figure 1, looking at low-fertility countries with populations at or above 20 million, shows a broad variation in their completed fertility among the women born up to the mid-1970s. Italy, Spain and Japan reached very low cohort fertility at around 1.4 births per woman, followed by Germany (1.56) and Russia (1.60). In contrast, Australia, France, United Kingdom and the United States retained around-replacement family size with completed fertility between 1.9 and 2.15 births per woman. The list of post-transitional countries with around-replacement cohort fertility (at or above 1.8) also includes the Nordic countries, Belgium, Ireland and New Zealand.

Fig. 1 Completed cohort fertility among women born in 1940–1974; post-transitional countries with population at or above 20 million. A small portion of fertility at higher ages (38+) among women born in the late 1960s and the early 1970s has been estimated. Sources: Human Fertility Database (2016), Human Fertility Collection (2015), Council of Europe (2006), national statistical offices, Sobotka et al. (Reference Sobotka, Zeman, Potančoková, Eder, Brzozowska, Beaujouan and Matysiak2015) and own computations partly based on Eurostat (2015) data.

Period fertility often falls to ‘ultra-low’ low levels

Within the broad variation of fertility in post-transitional societies it is most of all the experience of very low fertility that fuels worry and attracts most attention. Typically, low fertility has been discussed using period TFRs, which are widely available, but also easily misinterpreted, not least because they are often influenced by the changes in the timing of births and in the parity distribution of the female population (Sobotka & Lutz, Reference Sobotka and Lutz2011). Two boundaries of the period TFR have featured most prominently in demographic debates: 1.5 and 1.3. Peter McDonald suggested that rich countries are split into two groups, one where fertility is moderately below replacement, with the TFR staying above 1.5, and the other where fertility is below that level and consequently also below the ‘safety zone’, implying that the generation size will fall rapidly and massive migration would be needed to offset this decline (McDonald, Reference McDonald2006, p. 485). Rindfuss et al. (Reference Rindfuss, Choe and Brauner-Otto2016) proposed that the apparent ‘bifurcation’ of period fertility in rich countries around the 1.5 threshold signifies an emergence of two distinct fertility regimes, with a sizeable group of countries ‘stuck’ with a low period TFR.

Yet another, lower, boundary of the period TFR below 1.3 first became significant in the 1990s when many Southern, Central and Eastern European countries suddenly experienced fertility decline below this ‘lowest-low’ fertility threshold (Kohler et al., Reference Kohler, Billari and Ortega2002). Soon thereafter, such a low fertility was experienced in many countries of Europe as well as in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and, for a short period, also in Japan. By 2002 more than half of the European population lived in countries with such a low period TFR (Goldstein et al., Reference Goldstein, Sobotka and Jasilioniene2009). Some countries and regions even recorded a TFR falling below 1, including the eastern part of Germany after German reunification (between 1991 and 1996), many provinces of Spain and Italy, especially in the 1990s, and the region of Hong Kong between 1999 and 2006. Although the TFR in many parts of Europe recovered somewhat in the 2000s, very low TFR levels are still reported in a number of countries and regions, especially after the recent economic recession. In Europe, very low TFRs in the order of 1.20–1.40 are now found especially in Southern Europe (in Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Spain), Moldova, Romania and Poland (Fig. 2). In East Asia, the TFR dipped to 1.07 in Taiwan, 1.12 in Hong Kong, and 1.19 in South Korea and Singapore in 2013, following a temporary spike in 2012 during the Year of the Dragon, which is considered auspicious for having children.

Fig. 2 Selected highly developed countries and regions with very low (upper panel) and relatively high (lower panel) period TFR in 2014 compared with the TFR in 2000 and 2007. Sources: Eurostat (2016), Human Fertility Database (2016) and national statistical offices.

However dramatic such low fertility rates appear to be, they have often proved to be a transient phenomenon. Sobotka (Reference Sobotka2004a) analysed all European countries that had reached a TFR at or below 1.3 during the 1990s and early 2000s and concluded that such low fertility levels were driven by the tempo effect caused by the shift towards later timing of births. Without this shift, period TFR in all the analysed countries would still be low, but would stay at or above 1.4 (see also Goldstein et al., Reference Goldstein, Sobotka and Jasilioniene2009; Bongaarts & Sobotka, Reference Bongaarts and Sobotka2012).

When considering the shifts to very low fertility it is important to highlight the wide variation in post-transitional fertility in highly developed countries. Figure 2 shows selected countries and regions with very low (TFR at or below 1.32) and relatively high (TFR at or above 1.80) period fertility in 2014. In its extremes, the TFR ranges from below 1 in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, to over 3 in Israel and a few regions in Russia and elsewhere. Very low fertility is typically concentrated in East Asia, Southern Europe and, to a smaller extent, in Central and Eastern Europe. Within countries, the lowest-fertility regions are often either booming capital cities with highly educated and highly mobile populations living in densely populated areas (Seoul, Bucharest) or in relatively peripheral regions (Sardinia, Northern Portugal).

Higher fertility at around-replacement level is most typical of North-western Europe, United States, Australia and New Zealand. Whereas most rich countries have experienced protracted sub-replacement fertility, there are also a few counter-examples of places and populations that have so far bucked the trend and retained above-replacement fertility. Israel is the most peculiar case – a rich society marked by enormous social, ethnic and religious divides and persistently high levels of period TFR that has hovered around 2.9–3.1 since the early 1980s. Such a high fertility is largely attributable to a sizeable minority of ultra-Orthodox Jews who have retained a TFR of around 7 in the last decades (e.g. Okun, Reference Okun2013). Relatively high fertility is also found in other selected regions with ethnically, religiously or culturally distinct populations, including Utah (with a high share of Mormon adherents), remote regions with high shares of aboriginal or native population with higher fertility (Alaska in the United States, Nunavut and Northwest Territories in Canada, Northern Territory in Australia, Tyva Republic in Russia), but also in some prosperous regions with ethnically and culturally diverse populations (Texas, US) and urban regions with high shares of migrants and ethnic minorities (Brussels region in Belgium).

The ‘postponement transition’ depresses period fertility rates for decades

Although their fertility rates differ considerably, post-transitional countries share the trend towards delayed family formation. It started in the early 1970s in Western Europe, United States and Japan, driven by a combination of rising women’s lifelong employment, expanding secondary and higher education, rapid spread of efficient contraception and wider access to abortion, unstable economic conditions and changing partnership and sexual behaviour (Sobotka, Reference Sobotka2010; Mills et al., Reference Mills, Rindfuss, McDonald and te Velde2011). The trend towards delayed parenthood is remarkable by its persistence, progressing in some countries such as Japan, Sweden and Switzerland without interruption for more than four decades (Table 1). In the Western world, fertility postponement brought a reversal of the trend towards earlier marriages and births during the ‘baby boom’ period in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Table 1 Key characteristics of the ‘postponement transition’ in selected low-fertility countries

MAB1 is the mean age at first birth computed from the schedule of age-specific fertility rates for first births; Adj TFR is the Total Fertility Rate adjusted for tempo effect caused by the changes in the timing of childbearing. The data used here are based either on Bongaarts and Feeney’s (Reference Bongaarts and Feeney1998) method or on its more sophisticated variant described in Bongaarts and Sobotka (Reference Bongaarts and Sobotka2012). Sources: Human Fertility Database (2016), European Demographic Data Sheet 2016 (VID, 2016) and national statistical offices. ‘Adj TFR’ taken from the European Demographic Data Sheet (VID, 2016). Data for Korea were computed by Sam Hyun Yoo (Yoo & Sobotka, Reference Yoo and Sobotka2017).

In the 1970s, women in the developed countries typically became mothers at ages 22–25. In 1975 Japanese women had the latest pattern of family formation globally, becoming mothers at age 25.6 on average. At present, the mean age at first birth in rich countries has increased to 26–30 years – a shift by 4–6 years over the last four decades (Table 1). The boundary of the highest mean age at first birth has increased without interruption after the mid-1970s, reaching 31 in South Korea in 2014 (Fig. 3). In the South Korean capital, Seoul, the mean age at first birth reached a high of 32.0 in 2015 (KOSIS, 2016). Arguably, the combination of rigid employment conditions with long and inflexible working hours, low gender equality and also the pattern of a delayed marriage in a culture where childbearing outside marriage is not accepted, contribute to the very late first birth pattern in South Korea (Lee & Choi, Reference Lee and Choi2015; Yoo, Reference Yoo2016).

Fig. 3 Highest mean age at first birth among low-fertility countries, 1974–2014. Small countries and territories with population below 1 million are excluded. Sources: Human Fertility Database (2016), Human Fertility Collection (2015), own computations using Eurostat (2015) data, and computations by Sam Hyun Yoo (Yoo & Sobotka, Reference Yoo and Sobotka2017).

This change in the timing of family formation, which was initiated in most countries when period TFR was around the replacement level of 2.1 (Table 1), has had a strong impact on period fertility. During the course of the tempo transition some of the births that would otherwise have taken place in any given year have been ‘shifted’ into the future. The size of this ‘tempo effect’ is not negligible and is proportional to the pace of increase in the mean age of childbearing (Bongaarts & Feeney, Reference Bongaarts and Feeney1998); according to recent estimates, the TFR in the European Union in 2012 of 1.57 would reach 1.72 if the age at childbearing remained stable during that year (VID, 2016). This means the tempo effect has reduced the period TFR across the EU by 0.15 on average. In individual low-fertility countries the size of the tempo effect over the last two decades has been estimated at close to nil to a sizeable −0.7 births per woman in the Czech Republic in the second half of the 1990s (Sobotka et al., Reference Sobotka, Zeman, Potančoková, Eder, Brzozowska, Beaujouan and Matysiak2015; VID, 2016; see also estimates of tempo-adjusted TFR for selected countries in Table 1). These estimates are based on tempo-adjustment methods, which can be criticized for their underlying assumptions (e.g. Ní Bhrolcháin, Reference Ní Bhrolcháin2011), but they still give a clear indication about the role of the timing shifts in affecting the conventional period fertility measures.

Different pathways of the ‘postponement transition’

Postponement of childbearing has therefore emerged as a key factor in explaining the emergence of very low period fertility. In many countries with low fertility it has provided the decisive push that depressed their period TFR to lowest-low levels below 1.3 (Sobotka, Reference Sobotka2004a). Without shifting childbearing to higher reproductive ages, countries such as Japan, South Korea, Russia or Spain would not have witnessed such low period TFR levels over the last two decades. The ‘postponement transition’ can also be seen as a long-term shift with three phases, characterized by distinct trends in period TFR and its age-specific components (see also Chapter 3 in Sobotka, Reference Sobotka2004b). Figure 4a gives a stylized representation of this process. During the initial (first) phase women start postponing motherhood and, as a result, the TFR declines rapidly and the mean age at first birth starts rising. In most developed countries this phase overlapped with a general decline of fertility below replacement level, often resulting in impressive reductions in the TFR. In the second phase of continuing postponement, which can last for several decades, the TFR level stays low or very low, while the mean age at first birth continues rising. In reality the TFR often rises and falls during this period, but it continues being squeezed by the tempo effect. In this phase many governments express concerns about potentially negative long-term consequences of very low fertility and start paying attention to family policies, often with explicitly pronatalist aims. Finally, in the third phase of fertility ‘recuperation’, the increase in the age at first birth slows down and eventually comes to an end, the tempo effect vanishes and the TFR increases, eventually reaching similar level as the completed cohort fertility. This phase is characterized by a gradual stabilization of fertility rates at younger childbearing ages below 30 (when fertility is no longer postponed) combined with a continuing increase in fertility at later ages (when fertility that had been postponed earlier is being realized; see Frejka, Reference Frejka2012). The actual size of the TFR increase depends on the fertility trend in the course of the tempo transition: if fertility level, net of tempo distortions, continues falling during that period, the TFR may rise slowly or even remain very low (Bongaarts, Reference Bongaarts2002). Because fertility levels have declined during the postponement transition almost everywhere, the period TFR in most countries eventually settles well below the levels reached before the onset of fertility postponement.

Fig. 4 (a) Changes in period TFR, completed cohort fertility (lagged by 30 years) and mean age at first birth during the course of the ‘postponement transition’ (stylized scheme). This constitutes an elaboration of Figure 3.13 in Sobotka (Reference Sobotka2004b). (b) Five trajectories of period TFR decline and recuperation during the course of the ‘postponement transition’ (stylized scheme); (c) Five trajectories of period TFR decline and recuperation during the course of the ‘postponement transition’: empirical examples of selected countries, 1970–2015. Data sources: Human Fertility Database (2016), European Demographic Data Sheet 2016 (VID, 2016), own computations using Eurostat (2015) data and national statistical offices.

This stylized representation of the postponement transition can be elaborated to capture considerable variation in fertility postponement across low-fertility countries. Figure 4b shows five ‘model’ trajectories of postponement, distinguished by the pace and severity of TFR decline in the first phase, by the duration and stability of the second phase of depressed fertility and by the rapidity and the size of fertility increase during the third phase of fertility recovery. With respect to the depth of the TFR declines, two trajectories leading to ultra-low fertility levels can be distinguished. The first one, T3, shows an accelerated transition, where a steep TFR fall to very low levels is followed by an equally impressive fertility recovery to considerably higher levels, whereas the second trajectory, T4, shows a TFR decline to very low levels, followed by only a gradual trend towards slightly higher fertility.

These trajectories are still simplified and the actual fertility trends are much more irregular and less predictable. Nevertheless, each of these trajectories can be linked with an observed pattern of a TFR fall and increase over the last four decades (Fig. 4c). Among the countries where the TFR has recovered to moderately low levels of between 1.6 and 2.1, the Netherlands has followed a pattern of a moderate TFR decline as well as subsequent recuperation (T1), France has shown a weak TFR decline with a strong subsequent recovery (T2) and Sweden has displayed a strong recuperation combined with considerable TFR swings (T5, see also Fig. 6). In addition, two trajectories marked so far by a TFR recuperation to lower levels of 1.4–1.6 are exemplified by an accelerated postponement transition of the Czech Republic (T3) and a gradual shift to very low TFR levels and only a weak subsequent recovery in Japan (T4).

Period fertility can increase considerably

The simplified scheme of the three-phase process of fertility postponement and recuperation is challenged by the arguments suggesting that fertility is likely to stay very low and becomes difficult to reverse once it falls below a certain critical threshold (McDonald, Reference McDonald2006; Rindfuss et al., Reference Rindfuss, Choe and Brauner-Otto2016). This idea has been most extensively elaborated by Lutz et al. (Reference Lutz, Skirbekk and Testa2006) in a ‘low fertility trap’ hypothesis. It sees very low fertility as an outcome of the experiences of young people who perceive an ever greater gap between their economic aspirations and their actual income and who grow up in an environment with few children. This experience also negatively affects their family size ideals, which in turn lead to yet lower fertility.

Without denying that this mechanism can be at work in some societies, especially in East Asia, the empirical evidence for a number of countries and regions in Europe, as well as Quebec in Canada, shows that TFRs can rebound robustly across diverse contexts and also from very different low thresholds. Figure 5 displays TFR increases in selected countries and regions, presenting for simplicity the TFR trajectory only during its increasing phase. The key insights provided by this figure are as follows:

1. 1. The TFR rise can be almost as sudden as its decline. In some cases, including Denmark, eastern Germany, Russia and Sweden, the TFR rose by 0.5–0.7 births per woman from its lowest point in the 1980s–2000s to its subsequent peak level.

2. 2. It is difficult to identify any specific threshold that would constitute a strong barrier to TFR increase. In some of the countries and regions shown in Fig. 5, the TFR rose from extreme low levels to a more ‘moderate’ low fertility at around 1.5–1.6 births per woman: such an increase took place in eastern Germany from a low of 0.77 in 1994, in northern Italy from 1.04 in 1994, in the Czech Republic from 1.13 in 1999 and in Catalonia from 1.15 in 1996. Yet in other cases the TFR ‘crossed’ the 1.5 boundary to considerably higher levels (Denmark, Estonia, Quebec, Russia) and in Sweden it shifted from 1.5 to the level just below 2.0 between 1999 and 2010.

3. 3. The trajectories of TFR increase are not always straightforward and may be interrupted, for instance, during the periods of economic uncertainty. Thus, in a number of cases where the TFR increase had started already in the 1980s (Denmark, Flanders, Quebec and Sweden), two distinct periods of TFR growth can be seen, interrupted by declining fertility (not shown).

4. 4. Fertility increases took place in very diverse institutional contexts, including the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, recovering from the economic shocks and social turbulences of the 1990s (e.g. Sobotka, Reference Sobotka2011; Frejka & Gietel-Basten, Reference Frejka and Gietel-Basten2016). In Estonia, Quebec and Russia pronatalist or family-oriented policies have arguably played an important role in the observed increases. However, in most countries other factors have played the key role, including favourable economic conditions, which have often been linked to the diminishing pace of fertility postponement and the resulting decline in tempo effects (e.g. Goldstein et al., Reference Goldstein, Sobotka and Jasilioniene2009). In addition, the rise of immigrant populations with higher fertility levels has partly contributed to the observed TFR rise in some prosperous regions (Catalonia, Flanders and northern Italy).

Fig. 5 Increases in period TFR in five European countries, four subnational regions in Europe and Quebec, 1983–2015. Only periods of TFR increase shown. Sources: Human Fertility Database (2016), own computations using Eurostat (2015) data, national statistical offices for Russia and Czech Republic (most recent data), Catalonia, Flanders, eastern Germany and northern Italy; ISQ (2015) for Quebec.

Ups, downs and reversals: post-transitional fertility is often unstable

The falls and increases in period TFRs discussed above show that there is no ‘natural’ boundary around which fertility declines bottom out, but also that these declines are often reversed. Post-transitional fertility is usually unstable, at least when viewed from a period perspective. Especially under rapidly changing societal conditions (e.g. after the collapse of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe) and during economically uncertain times couples often respond by postponing childbearing (e.g. Sobotka et al., Reference Sobotka, Skirbekk and Philipov2011). If they manage to have the presumably postponed children later in life, period fertility might rise quickly, but cohort fertility would remain relatively stable as period ups and downs compensate one another.

A prime example of such development is Sweden, where unstable ‘roller-coaster’ period fertility trends (Hoem & Hoem, Reference Hoem and Hoem1996) have been combined with very stable cohort fertility that has stabilized close to 2 children per woman among the women born since 1910 (Fig. 6). These fertility swings have been partly driven by parental leave policies that stimulated a faster progression to second and higher order births (and thus higher fertility) in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Hoem & Hoem, Reference Hoem and Hoem1996), but also by economic downturns, changes in employment and education enrolment that led to postponed and depressed period TFRs, especially in the late 1990s (Andersson, Reference Andersson2000).

Fig. 6 Long-term changes in TFR (1930–2015) and completed cohort fertility (women born 1900–1974) in Sweden. Sources: Human Fertility Database (2016), Statistics Sweden and own computations using Eurostat (2015) data.

The key driving forces of post-transitional fertility

Four interrelated forces have been repeatedly identified as important explanations for the low, delayed and unstable period fertility in post-transitional countries: (1) the rapid growth in secondary and university education; (2) the rising instability of the labour market and the deteriorating economic position of young adults; (3) the changing gender roles and the concomitant rise of women’s employment, and 4) changing living arrangements and values related to partnership, marriage and family. Wide differences exist between countries in how they have accommodated to the sweeping changes in family behaviour. Given space limitations this discussion is simplified and omits many important details pertaining to specific countries and regions. A more detailed review is provided in Sobotka (Reference Sobotka2017).

This review would not be complete without mentioning the role of efficient contraception, especially the pill, but also of condoms, ‘emergency’ post-coital contraception and access to legal abortion. Widely used contraception has allowed the unprecedented fall in teenage fertility in most rich countries, has enabled women to pursue higher education without becoming pregnant and has allowed couples to postpone parenthood in response to adverse economic conditions (Goldin & Katz, Reference Goldin and Katz2002).

Education expansion as a key driver of postponed parenthood

The expansion of secondary and tertiary education, especially among women, has been the main factor behind the shift to delayed first birth (Mills et al., Reference Mills, Rindfuss, McDonald and te Velde2011; Ní Bhrolcháin & Beaujouan, Reference Ní Bhrolcháin and Beaujouan2012). In the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries the share of 25- to 34-year-old women with tertiary education has clearly outpaced the rise of tertiary education among men of the same age (OECD, 2014a). In a growing number of countries, including Australia, Japan, South Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom, a majority of women around age 30 have graduated from university. As being enrolled in education is usually considered incompatible with parenthood (Blossfeld & Huinink, Reference Blossfeld and Huinink1991), not least because it means delaying economic independence, the rise in university education directly translates into a later timing of first birth. In addition, young adults who have completed education now spend longer finding a stable job, leaving the parental home, finding a long-term partner and finding suitable housing. All these factors lead to additional postponement of family formation, a trend most pronounced among women with a degree (Lappegård & Rønsen, Reference Lappegård and Rønsen2005; Berrington et al., Reference Berrington, Stone and Beaujouan2015). Many women have been postponing childbearing considerably longer, into their late 30s or early 40s, risking infertility and often undergoing costly assisted reproduction treatments (Beaujouan & Sobotka, Reference Beaujouan and Sobotka2017).

The rise in education attainment is often linked to smaller family size. Most low-fertility countries, with the exceptions of Belgium and the Nordic countries (e.g. Andersson et al., Reference Andersson, Rønsen, Knudsen, Lappegård, Neyer and Skrede2009), have a negative fertility gradient by level of education (Basten et al., Reference Basten, Sobotka and Zeman2014; Sobotka et al., Reference Sobotka, Zeman, Potančoková, Eder, Brzozowska, Beaujouan and Matysiak2015). In addition, East Asian societies, especially Japan and South Korea, put strong emphasis on children’s education achievement, which is stressful, time-intensive and costly to the parents who pay for tutoring and other extracurricular activities. This ‘educational arms race’ arguably contributes to the ‘ultra-low’ fertility in the region (Rindfuss & Choe, Reference Rindfuss and Choe2015; Tan et al., Reference Tan, Morgan and Zagheni2016).

Uncertain lives: deteriorating economic and labour market position of young adults

The recent economic recession in Europe and the United States has provided new evidence that economically uncertain times are not conducive to marriage and childbearing (Sobotka et al., Reference Sobotka, Skirbekk and Philipov2011). Business cycles clearly contribute to fertility fluctuations in post-transitional societies, especially through fertility downturns in uncertain times. However, the economic position of young adults – especially males – had started deteriorating in many rich countries several decades before the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008. Their employment rates declined (partly due to expanding university education), their jobs became more insecure and often poorly paid, their earnings relative to those of middle-aged people fell and housing became unaffordable for many of them (Blossfeld et al., Reference Blossfeld, Klijzing, Mills and Kurz2005; Sanderson et al., Reference Sanderson, Skirbekk and Stonawski2013; Economist, 2016). In particular, Southern European countries have seen a long-standing rise in labour market uncertainty among young adults, which imply postponement of marriage and family formation (Adsera, Reference Adsera2004, Reference Adsera2005; Mills et al., Reference Mills, Rindfuss, McDonald and te Velde2011), as an ever growing number of younger people are unable to reach the material standards (in terms of employment position, sufficient income and housing) considered necessary to start a family. The share of young adults who are NEETs (not in employment, education or training) has grown rapidly in the south and south-east of Europe, where it surpassed 15% in the early 2010s in several countries, including Italy and Spain (OECD, 2014b).

Scholars have pointed to a host of global and national forces behind young adults losing economic ground. These include economic liberalization and globalization of trade, migration of cheap labour competing with local blue-collar workers, technological change displacing lower-qualified jobs, but also social, pension and labour market policies that often ignore the needs of younger people. Vanhuysse (Reference Vanhuysse2013) has identified massive pro-elderly bias in public spending in many low-fertility OECD countries, including Poland, Greece, Italy, Slovakia and Japan.

The long-term trend towards more economic insecurity was recently aggravated in Europe and the United States by the impact of the recent Great Recession. This experience has generally confirmed that fertility in post-transitional countries is pro-cyclical (Sobotka et al., Reference Sobotka, Skirbekk and Philipov2011; Currie & Schwandt, Reference Currie and Schwandt2014; Comolli, Reference Comolli2017). Fertility decline during the recent recession was especially sharp among young women below age 25, supporting the view that economic downturn typically leads to the postponement of births rather than to a decline in lifetime fertility.

Women’s employment and the ‘gender revolution’: from family decline to family resurgence?

The massive expansion of education among women has gone hand in hand with their rising career aspirations and actual employment rates. Being employed has become an expected part of women’s life plans in rich societies (Goldin, Reference Goldin2006). The indicator of women’s labour force participation, which also includes unemployed women, has broadly converged across the rich OECD countries (excluding Turkey and Latin American countries), typically reaching 70–85% among women aged 30–34 in 2014 (OECD, 2016). The upturns in women’s work participation have been most impressive in countries such as Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain, where a majority of women of childrearing ages (especially 25–45) remained outside formal employment until the 1980s. This shift in women’s education and labour market participation is also a marker of their ambitions and independence, which have profound implications for family life and fertility. In a nutshell, these implications can be summarized as follows:

1. 1. The traditional male breadwinner model of family, characterized by gender role specialization and women’s almost exclusive responsibility for the domestic sphere, has rapidly diminished in importance. It has been replaced by more diverse family arrangements, including many households where a women has higher income than her male partner, but also by a rise of a ‘modernized male breadwinner model’ (Steiber et al., Reference Steiber, Berghammer and Haas2016), where mothers pursue part-time employment in order to be able to combine their parenting and childcare responsibilities.

2. 2. Because a large majority of women expect to get employed after completing their education, parenthood is often postponed until a woman and her partner achieve relatively secure employment. This also implies that actual labour market experiences and employment expectations have a stronger influence on women’s fertility decisions than in the past.

3. 3. Labour market conditions in terms of job security, unemployment rate, work hours, availability of part-time jobs, work flexibility and the availability of parental and childcare leave become increasingly important for women’s and couples’ fertility decisions. Rigid labour markets with long work hours, strong competition and little flexibility for employees, as in South Korea, contribute to delayed and depressed fertility. Similarly, poorly functioning labour markets with persistently high unemployment, high share of low-paid and unstable ‘stop-gap’ jobs, and also high rates of self-employment, as in Italy and Spain, have a similar negative effect (Adsera, Reference Adsera2004).

4. 4. Family policies become important in mediating the impact of labour market conditions on families. Policies that support a combination of labour market involvement and family life also support women and couples in realizing their fertility plans. Of particular importance is the public provision of childcare, especially for children below age 3, and policies regulating parental leave and employment.

5. 5. The contribution of men to childcare and household responsibilities is increasingly relevant (Hook, Reference Hook2006; Miranda, Reference Miranda2010). In countries where an unequal division of household tasks persists and women shoulder the double burden of employment and family responsibilities, the consequence for fertility decisions is obvious: having fewer children and having them later in life. Especially in East Asia, men mostly focus on their work career and contribute very little time to childcare and domestic work (e.g. Tsuya, Reference Tsuya2015, for Japan).

6. 6. High level of domestic gender equality has been repeatedly suggested as a pre-condition to achieving higher fertility rates in post-transitional countries (e.g. McDonald, Reference McDonald2000; Goldscheider et al., Reference Goldscheider, Bernhardt and Lappegård2015). Myrskylä et al. (Reference Myrskylä, Kohler and Billari2011) concluded that countries that combined advanced development (high education, high income and low mortality) and low level of gender equality were characterized by declining or very low fertility. This evidence lends support to the notion that countries with pronounced domestic gender inequality might indeed get ‘stuck’ at a low fertility level for prolonged periods of time (Goldscheider et al., Reference Goldscheider, Bernhardt and Lappegård2015).

The link between changing values, changing family and fertility

The most prominent theoretical framework of post-transitional fertility and family change is the concept of the ‘Second Demographic Transition’ (SDT) (e.g. van de Kaa, Reference Van de Kaa1987; Lesthaeghe, Reference Lesthaeghe2010). The framework links changes in values and changes in family – characterized by a decline in marriage and a rise in cohabitation, living single and other less ‘traditional’ family forms – with a concomitant fertility decline to sub-replacement levels and parenthood postponement (Lesthaeghe, Reference Lesthaeghe2010). But there is an interesting and initially unexpected twist. Most European countries that progressed furthest in values shifts and family behaviours characteristic of the SDT, including the Nordic countries and France, did not experience fertility declines to very low levels (Sobotka, Reference Sobotka2008). These countries combine a pattern of postponed parenthood with a strong ‘recovery’ of fertility rates at advanced reproductive ages.

One factor that may contribute to this fertility recovery is the high level of gender equality discussed above: the ‘gender revolution’ clearly progresses hand in hand with the SDT. In addition, the positive SDT–fertility correlation is also partly explained by a wide acceptance of cohabitation and fertility outside marriage in countries where SDT has advanced most. There, fertility outside marriage has at least partly offset the fall in marital fertility. It is therefore no coincidence that close-to-replacement fertility is positively correlated with a high share of births outside marriage. In a growing number of European countries, including Belgium, France and Sweden, a majority of births take place outside marriage, rendering marriage ever more irrelevant for fertility.

In many societies, however, the declining relevance of marriage has gone hand in hand with prolonged single living or extended co-residence of young adults with their parents. In East Asia, childbearing outside marriage remains strongly disapproved of. At the same time, the ‘marriage package’ for women is still often bundled not only with childbearing and childrearing, but also with a long withdrawal from employment and with many new family responsibilities (see Bumpass et al., Reference Bumpass, Rindfuss, Choe and Tsuya2009). In Southern Europe, a mixture of prolonged education, precarious economic situation and unaffordable housing, combined with the persistence of strong family ties, has resulted in a high share of young people who continue living with their parents (and enjoying all the amenities of ‘hotel mamma’) well into their 30s (Iacovou, Reference Iacovou2010). A similar situation also persists in many countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Sobotka, Reference Sobotka2011).