Fewer Births, Fewer Plans: Unpacking the Recent Fertility Declines in Post-transitional Societies

Tomas Sobotka , Vienna Institute of Demography

The long-term shift to a low fertility had accelerated in many high- and middle-income countries after the Great Recession, during the 2010s, and then has picked up speed again in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in the early 2020s. East Asia has become a hotspot of „ultra-low“ fertility, with a rising number of countries and regions recording a total fertility rate around or below 1.0. Sharp fertility drops also took place in Nordic countries and Western European countries with extensive family policies that used to have fertility rates close to the replacement level of 2.1. Such a drop in fertility is puzzling and unforeseen by both major theories of fertility change and past fertility projection scenarios. This study maps this new low-fertility landscape and outlines its key features. Among the long-lasting factors, I look at the continuation of the shift towards delayed partnership and family formation and higher lifetime childlessness. Among the more recent factors and explanations, I highlight the accelerated drop in fertility among younger women and women with lower socioeconomic status and a trend to more uncertain and lower fertility preferences among young adults. The fertility „recovery“ among women of later childbearing ages during the 1990s and 2000s started stalling in the 2010s, signalling a future downward drift in family size among women born between 1980 and 1995. I discuss the emerging factors and institutional conditions driving the new shift to very low fertility and highlight uncertainties about global fertility futures.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 15. Fertility: Trends and Patterns