논문리뷰6 economic uncertainty and fertility

Historical perspectives on economic conditions and family dynamics

 For historical demographers, economic hardship has remained a decisive factor in explanations for postponed or foregone marriage formation and reduced fertility (see, e.g., Bengtsson and Saito 2000).

The assumption that having a secure economic position is the main prerequisite for having children was, however, severely challenged by the demographic developments that are collectively referred to as Europe‘s demographic transition. During this transition, industrialization and economic growth were accompanied by rapid declines in fertility. This trend gave rise to a situation in which high income and great wealth were associated with low, rather than high, fertility. The observation that wealthier individuals tended to limit their fertility to a greater extent than others called for new theoretical approaches. Some early researchers speculated that having children may have an inverse effect on social mobility Becker (1960) argued that parents not only choose the number of children (child quantity), but also the time and money they invest in each child (child quality). of family economics. However, because it focuses exclusively on income, the scope of the concept is too limited to explain how economic uncertainty relates to fertility.

 When seeking to understand the relationship between individual-level circumstances and childbearing and other family-related outcomes, empirical studies have tended to focus on the interplay of women‘s employment and family dynamics. Both the economic approach to fertility and the Second Demographic Transition theory posit that women‘s emancipation and employment are detrimental to fertility. However, neither of these two lines of thought adequately consider the possibility that labor market uncertainties are determinants of childbearing and family-demographic behavior.

More recently, demographers have paid increasing attention to economic uncertainty as a potential cause of the fertility declines observed across Europe since the 1980s. First, Southern Europe experienced drastic declines in annual birth rates during the 1990s. Second, in Central and Eastern Europe, birth rates declined rapidly with the dismantling of the communist regimes of the region.