Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Future Fertility in Low Fertility Countries AbstractThis paper discusses results of the global survey of experts on the future of low fertility in low-fertility countries. The survey was coordinated by the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital as a part of an effort to produce global argumentbased population projections by age, sex and level of education. First we give an overview of fertility changes in major low-fertility regions. Next we outline main theoretical arguments and review a wide range of factors contributing to fertility change and variation in contemporary low-fertility settings. Subsequently, we present survey results based on 184 assessments of over 170 experts analysing 41 countries with currently low or aroundreplacement fertility and Israel. These experts provided forecasts of period total fertility rate (TFR) in 2030 and 2050, estimated 80% confidence interval of their forecast and assessed the validity and potential impact on fertility of 46 factors. We also compare expert-derived projections of the TFR trends with the forecasts formulated by the UN World Population Prospects in 2010. The survey results in combination with the feedback provided by the invited experts then serve as a basis for formulating a set of projection scenarios for all low fertility countries up until 2050, which are additionally expanded (in a simpler form) through 2200. We present these scenarios and discuss past changes in fertility differences by level of education and their potential future trends in main regions. Presented analyses and projections indicate that a global convergence of fertility to around replacement level, envisioned in the UN projections, appears unlikely. Continuing differentiation combined with partial convergence in fertility towards lower levels is suggested as a more plausible scenario, with East Asia (including China) as well as Russia expected to have sustained very low fertility below 1.5 through 2050.

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As one of the world’s two population ‘billionaires’, the future of China’s population is truly of global significance. With its very low fertility and a rapidly ageing population, it might appear that the country’s famous (or notorious) family planning restrictions are somewhat anachronistic. Here, we explore the process of reform seen over the past three decades and, most recently, in late 2013. We suggest that the popular notion that the family planning restrictions are acting as a pressure valve suppressing a pent-up demand for childbearing, particularly in rural China, is likely to be inaccurate. We also suggest that further reform of the restrictions will not solve the problems of population ageing or many of the other issues widely associated with the restrictions. We conclude that the prospects for further reform are wide-ranging, but likely to be beset by many challenges.

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Sub-national trends in fertility are of great importance for policy makers and regional planners. This paper aims to provide a theoretical and empirical framework for policy makers, taking into account past and present trends in fertility, as well as their theoretical underpinnings. These will, we argue, be crucial in determining future trajectories and potential political responses to them.The theoretical part of the paper deals with the factors that may influence fertility differences at the sub-national level, including decisions and life course trajectories at the individual level, as well as contextual socio-economic phenomena operating at different geographical levels (local, regional, national, global). This is followed by an empirical section, which takes the Eurostat publications on spatial fertility differences inEuropeas a starting point. In an attempt to overcome the limitations of these reports – both in terms of the lack of geographic detail and the short time span covered – we provide more thorough overviews for Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Using historical data from the Princeton European Fertility Project and other sources, we have been able to reconstruct comparative regional fertility time series for the past 150 years. Finally, we present a case study on local fertility development in the municipalities and unified rural communities of the German state ofLower Saxonyand the districts of the German city ofBremen.Based on the results of this analysis, we conclude that the recent degree of fertility convergence between regions within countries – particularly at the macro-regional level – is, indeed, striking. However, taking a long-term perspective, we are able to identify some substantial time periods over the last 150 years in which regional fertility levels diverged. This implies that the current picture must not necessarily constitute Fukuyama’s “end of history” over the coming decades. Moreover, the study of local-level data reveals that, in contrast to the overall macro-regional fertility convergence process in all three countries, a trend towards divergence can be observed within the city of Bremen. This demonstrates that local divergence can run parallel to overall regional convergence.

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