The Evolutionary Approach to Understand Human Low Fertility Phenomenon

Abstract

Is it possible to reverse the low total fertility rate (TFR) in the developed world? Using a hypothetical model of population we have analyzed the decline of the TFR which have took place in the background of ongoing global economic changes, and a liberalization process after the end of the Cold War. These phenomena have affected more that 110 millions of inhabitants of Central Europe and the Baltics and approximately 80 millions of inhabitants in Germany. The model has features of complex and evolving system of interacting individuals, and it enables to investigate a broad spectrum of input factors on individual decisions to limit the offspring. In the case of the TFR < 1.5, our initial analysis show a need of radical changes of the global economy that will stimulate series of self-regulations of demographic processes and evolution toward the safe TFR > 2.1. The changes should stimulate more uniform spatial distribution of wealth, capital, and usage. They will increase a number of self-sufficient and cooperative territories, to decrease the income inequality, to decrease labor and social mobilities. Societies should investigate the impacts of economic regulations and actions on the TFR trends in advance and take into account a biological nature of women more responsible.

Low fertility rate reversal: a feature of interactions between Biological and Economic systems

“…The authors [9,25] considered a tempo effect [26] as a major effect that distorts the TFR, and they [26] explain a rise in the European fertility as disappearance of the tempo effect and socio-economic progress [9]. However, they [9,[24][25][26] neglected the effect of continuous immigration [8] that takes place during a long time from a periphery to the core [17], and different economic regulations [17] that result in different TFR trends in, for example, USA, UK and Germany (Figure 4) [17].…”

“…In this study, the population is considered to be a living system [13] that interacts with the environment [14] and can be classified as a complex system [15]. In such a system, interactions among its parts [16] and environment could give rise to a broad spectrum of phenomena [17] for example, the demographic transition [1], Lutz's assumption [18] that countries with low fertility TFR < 1.5 may have crossed into permanent negative population growth, difficulties to project the TFR [5,12], and etc.…”

“…Study of complex systems needs an interdisciplinary approach, where mathematical and physical methods are successfully used to understand phenomena like network formation, diffusion, collective behaviour, synchronization, phase transitions, chaotic behaviour, self-regulation, pattern formation, self-assembling, etc [15,17]. In the past, we invented and described fundamental properties of the digital generator of chaos [19], where an initial idea was to solve a nonlinear Feigenbaum equation on the lattice.…”

“…A study of the relationship between the Human Development Index (HDI) and the TFR provides important information to propose a population model that will take into account impacts of economic regulations and political changes on individual woman's decision to plan a life path, as well as family size [17].…”

Will a highly developed society be able to secure population replacement?

“…Guaranteeing natural reproduction conditions of adolescents is rather difficult, because we need to dramatically change current economic situation of young people, such that they can make their decisions less dependent on the corrupt society (Rousseau ( 7)). Possible measures that can lead to changes are: decreasing mobility, reducing inequality, increasing personal savings, considering aspects of woman fertility in economic and social actions, and searching for new economic and social models that will lead to self-regulation of the TFR around the safe levels (12).…”