A decade of TFR declines suggests no relationship between development and sub-replacement fertility rebounds

Abstract

BACKGROUNDHuman development is historically associated with fertility declines. However, demographic paradigms disagree about whether that relationship should hold at very high levels of development. Using data through the late 2000s, Billari (2009, 2011) found that very high national levels of the Human Development Index (HDI) were associated with increasing total fertility rates (TFRs), at least at high levels of gender parity. OBJECTIVEThis paper seeks to update that finding and to introduce the Human Life Indicator (HLI) as a novel measure of development within this debate. RESULTSAmong the countries that reached HDI 0.8 before 2010 (n = 40), there is no clear relationship between changes in the HDI and the TFR at HDI > 0.8 through 2018. Conditioning on high levels of gender parity does not change this finding. This negative result is closely tied to the sharp declines in fertility seen in most highly developed countries since 2010 -a median decline of 0.125 in tempo-adjusted TFR through the most recent available year (n = 23). Furthermore, the longer historical coverage of the HLI shows that at all high levels of development, at least one country has exhibited almost every level of TFR between 1.2 and 2.0. CONCLUSIONSFertility declines over the last decade mean that the previous suggestion that very high levels of development and gender equality foster fertility increases is no longer supported on the national level.

Economic complexity and fertility: insights from a low fertility country

“…Linkages between economic conditions in a country, or region, and community characteristics have been discussed across demographic (Arpino & Tavares, 2013;Bleha & Ďurček, 2017), sociological (Hank, 2002) and economic (Sato, 2007) studies, but past research has found different effectsmainly depending on the area's level of development and the period analyzed. For medium-or highincome countries, there has been a discussion over a reversal in the fertility trend (Gaddy, 2021;Myrskyla et al, 2009) based on the idea that an area's socioeconomic development is associated with a decline in fertility only up to a certain point, after which the association becomes positive (Day, 2012;Myrskyla et al, 2009). Yet the question remains: What leads to such a reversal in the relationship?…”

“…Over the second half of the 20th century, one of the relatively most straightforward associations identified regarding fertility was the negative effect of economic development. Since the middle of the last century, much academic effort has been devoted to the study of this effect, as well as to searching for the reasons behind this negative association (Anderson & Kohler, 2015 ; Caldwell, 1976 ; Gaddy, 2021 ; Galor & Weil, 2000 ; Lesthaeghe, 1995 ). Recently, however, this accepted regularity is straining, and renewed attention has been paid to the link between economic development and total fertility (Herzer et al, 2012 ; Hofmann & Hohmeyer, 2013 ).…”

Population dynamics and economic development

“…Speculations in this direction may show a different stage five implying increasing birth rates coexisting with low death rates eventually producing a further sharp increase in total population worldwide. However, this view could support the idea that fertility rates should rise also at very high levels of economic development, which is at odds with the main view of the demographic literature (e.g., Gaddy, 2021) unless considering the catastrophic effects of infectious diseases, with specific regard to the fertility reversal effect of HIV/AIDS in SSA (Kalemli-Ozcan and Turan, 2011; Kalemli-Ozcan, 2012; .…”

“…By considering the expressions in (17), the Jacobian matrix evaluated at a generic stationary state equilibrium (c * , k * , L * ) reads as:…”

Hard times and falling fertility in the United States

“…[code for this is "countries and states gdp fertility.do"] A lower standard of living is associated with higher birth rates. However, economic crises cause declines in fertility (Currie and Schwandt 2014), and this was especially true around the 2008 recession in the U.S. (Comolli 2017;Schneider 2015) and other high-income countries (Gaddy 2021). The crisis interrupted what had been a mild recovery from falling total fertility rates in highincome countries, leading to a decline from 1.74 in 2008 to 1.57 by 2019 (Figure 2).…”