Future Fertility in Low Fertility Countries
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A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Basten, Stuart; Sobotka, Tomá; Zeman, Krytof Working Paper Future fertility in low fertility countries Vienna Institute of Demography Working Papers, No. 5/2013 Provided in Cooperation with: Vienna Institute of Demography (VID), Austrian Academy of Sciences Suggested Citation: Basten, Stuart; Sobotka, Tomá; Zeman, Krytof (2013) : Future fertility in low fertility countries, Vienna Institute of Demography Working Papers, No. 5/2013, Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Vienna Institute of Demography (VID), Vienna This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/97012 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu VIENNA INSTITUTE OF DEMOGRAPHY Working Papers 5 / 2013 Stuart Basten, Tomáš Sobotka and Kryštof Zeman Contributing Authors: M. Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Alicia Adsera, Jan Van Bavel, Caroline Berghammer, Minja Kim Choe, Tomas Frejka, Henri Leridon, Melinda Mills, S. Philip Morgan, Ronald R. Rindfuss, Louis Rosero-Bixby, Anna Rotkirch, Warren Sanderson, Maria Rita Testa, Olivier Thévenon, Zhongwei Zhao Future Fertility in Low Fertility Countries Vienna Institute of Demography Austrian Academy of Sciences Wohllebengasse 12-14 A-1040 Vienna · Austria E-Mail: [email protected] Website: www.oeaw.ac.at/vid Abstract This 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 argument- based 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 around- replacement 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. Keywords Fertility, low fertility, fertility determinants, projections, uncertainty, education, highly developed countries, Europe, East Asia Authors Stuart Basten, University of Oxford, Department of Social Policy and Intervention. Tomáš Sobotka (corresponding author), Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU), Vienna Institute of Demography/Austrian Academy of Sciences. Email: [email protected] Kryštof Zeman, Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU), Vienna Institute of Demography/Austrian Academy of Sciences. Contributing Authors M. Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Alicia Adsera, Jan Van Bavel, Caroline Berghammer, Minja Kim Choe, Tomas Frejka, Henri Leridon, Melinda Mills, S. Philip Morgan, Ronald R. Rindfuss, Louis Rosero-Bixby, Anna Rotkirch, Warren Sanderson, Maria Rita Testa, Olivier Thévenon, Zhongwei Zhao The contributing authors have drafted considerable parts of Sections 1.4 and 2. They were selected as lead experts in respective topics and regions. Specifically, they have provided texts to the following sections: M. Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi to Section 1.4.8 (“Middle East”), Alicia Adsera to Sections 1.4.7 (“Southern Europe”) and 2.4 (“Employment, economic uncertainty and fertility”), Jan Van Bavel and Ronald R. Rindfuss to Section 2.8 (“Education”), Caroline Berghammer to Section 2.3.2 (“Religion”), Minja Kim Choe to Section 1.4.9 (“East Asian countries and territories”) and Box 2 (“Living arrangements, gender roles, and their relationship to fertility in East Asia”), Melinda Mills to Section 2.3.3 (“Gender equality”), S. Philip Morgan to Section 1.4.1 (“The United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand”), Anna Rotkirch to Section 1.4.6 (“Nordic countries”), Warren Sanderson to Section 5.2 (“Long-term futures: preparing fertility scenarios beyond 2050”), Louis Rosero-Bixby to Section 1.4.2 (“Latin America”), Maria Rita Testa to Section 2.3.1 (“Fertility intentions”), Olivier Thévenon to Section 2.5 (“Family policies”), and Zhongwei Zhao to Sections 1.4.10 (“China”) and Box 1 (“Finding China’s Fertility Rate”). Henri Leridon has reviewed Section 2.7 (“Biomedical factors“). Tomas Frejka has provided detailed comments on the first draft of the paper and produced regional cohort fertility estimates. The lead authors have modified these texts in order to achieve higher uniformity and reduce overlaps and consulted these modifications with the contributing authors and book editors. In addition, the first complete version of the paper has been distributed to selected experts for additional comments and revisions. Acknowledgements The completion of this research would not be possible without the committed involvement of different contributors—researchers, contributing authors, experts participating in the online survey and those participating in the meeting in Vienna—who have organised the survey of experts or contributed to it, were involved in the debates on fertility scenarios presented here, and who have directly contributed to this working paper or helped checking and reviewing it. Special thanks are due to Bilal Barakat, who helped designing the survey of experts and provided first analyses of survey results, Michaela Potančoková who helped us collect data on education-fertility differentials analysed in Sections 5.3.1-5.3.4, Nikola Sander who operationalised Circos plots used in Figures 7 and 8, Bill Butz, Josh Goldstein and Tomas Frejka who provided detailed comments on the first draft of the chapter on which this paper was based, and Jim Dawson who has provided copy editing. Sobotka and Zeman’s contribution was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC Grant agreement 284238. Basten’s contribution was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigator Grant entitled “Forecasting Societies’ Adaptive Capacities to Climate Change” (ERC-2008-AdG 230195-FutureSoc); and the UK Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘Future Research Leader’ Grant, number ES/K001434/1. 2 Contents 1 Introduction and Summary of Past Trends: Beyond the Fertility Transition .................................. 5 1.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 5 1.1.1 The Future of the Low Fertility World ......................................................................... 5 1.1.2 Outline of this Working Paper ..................................................................................... 5 1.2 The ongoing Fertility Transition in East Asia, Middle East and Latin America ...................... 7 1.3 Europe, United States, Japan and Other Highly Developed Countries .................................... 9 1.4 Summary of Past Trends and Key Factors in Major Low-Fertility Regions .......................... 12 1.4.1 The United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand .......................................... 12 1.4.2 Latin America and the Caribbean .............................................................................. 13 1.4.3 Western Europe .........................................................................................................