Laboratory

Fertility and Well-Being

At a Glance Projects Publications Team

Research Area

Contemporary and Future Trends in Fertility

The 20^th century witnessed substantial declines in human fertility and population growth rates. At the same time, global populations experienced unprecedented improvements in socioeconomic development. The negative relationship between fertility and socioeconomic development has been one of the most solidly established and generally accepted empirical patterns described in the social sciences. In the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, however, a number of highly developed countries saw increases in their fertility levels. Projects in this research area aim to gain a deeper understanding of contemporary trends in fertility and to harness counterfactual causal inference techniques to disentangle complex socioeconomic processes that determine fertility.

Socioeconomic and demographic factors both appear to have influenced recent trends in period fertility. An important demographic factor is the postponement of births, which temporarily suppresses fertility levels. If postponement slows down, this suppression ends and fertility increases follow. Socioeconomic factors, including overall socioeconomic development, have also contributed positively to fertility trends, as have further improvements in socioeconomic conditions at high levels of socioeconomic development. But it remains unclear whether socioeconomic development influences fertility postponement. Moreover, the potentially critical role of gender equality as a link between socioeconomic development and fertility is poorly understood. Our goal is to provide a full description of the connections between socioeconomic development, gender equality, fertility postponement, and fertility trends.

Projects of this Research Area