Do Falling Birthrates Reflect Changing Priorities? NewsWire

NewsWire: 10/26/21

• A new study argues that falling birthrates are the result of changing life priorities among young adults. The researchers came to this conclusion after examining whether economic factors or certain policies could be linked to the declines. (National Bureau of Economic Research)
• NH: We have written often about the drivers behind declining U.S. birthrates. In general, we've concluded that women of childbearing age are having fewer kids largely because they're increasingly economically constrained from having the number of children they want to have.
• A new working paper from economists at the University of Maryland and Wellesley College has a different take. They think the main driver is changing values. People are having fewer children because their life priorities have shifted and they want fewer children.
• The researchers look at the decline in birthrates from 2007 and 2020. Although they find a clear link between birthrates falling sharply and the timing of the Great Recession, they are unable to identify any other “economic, policy, or social factor” that has contributed much to the decline.
• Really? Nothing other than the Great Recession? For me, this is the first red flag.
• The other factors the researchers examine include the unemployment rate, the minimum wage, the generosity of welfare benefits, the number of abortion restrictions, and the availability of contraception. None show a large effect on birthrates. They also bring up longer-term shifts, such as educational and economic gains among women and the higher costs of housing and education--but bafflingly, dismiss them by saying that these are unlikely to have had a “large and extended effect” on birthrates.
• Why? They argue that birthrate trends do not always follow the long-term shifts as expected--e.g. birthrates did not fall the most in the states where rents increased the most or average student debt is highest, and birthrates are not the lowest in states with the biggest declines in religiosity. Thus, attitudinal changes are the most likely culprit.
• IMO, this very much oversimplifies what’s going on. All of these shifts--economic, political, attitudinal--interact with each other. When American women are asked why they don’t want kids, the most commonly cited reasons are financial--e.g. high childcare costs, worries about the economy, and lack of paid family leave. Their attitudes and priorities have been directly shaped by their circumstances. The fact that the most expensive areas don’t have the lowest birthrates doesn’t mean much: People living in those areas may also have the highest incomes.
• The fact that there isn’t a strong relationship between birthrates and any one factor in any one location doesn’t mean these factors don’t matter, but that all of them matter. If the researchers wanted to estimate the aggregate impact of long-term forces by geographic area, they could have composed a plausible index of broad economic constraints that included data on student debt levels, average income, housing prices, stable marriages, etc. But they don't.
• The easiest way to understand why people are having fewer kids is to just ask them. And in polls, we consistently find that (1) financial pressures, the growing demands of parenthood, and the desire for leisure time are the top reasons, and (2) there is a widening gap between the number of kids Americans having and the number they consider ideal. (See “How Do Americans Feel About Having Kids?”) The researchers are right to say that people’s priorities have shifted. But they have shifted in response to changing circumstances, and they are still not getting the outcomes that they want.