It has long been an established social sciences standard that human fertility levels decline as countries advance to higher levels of social and economic development. Governments have made policy decisions as a result of believing this trend to be irreversible. Now there is an indication that the trend has begun to reverse in the United States and other highly developed countries.
Why Birth Rates Matter
The relationship between fertility rates and a society or country’s degree of development has long been an important, attention-getting topic in demography and economics. Rates of population growth are related to such things as the age structure of the populace, planning and providing adequate housing, transportation and health care systems, the labor force size and its impact upon pension systems, and a host of other governmental activities and services.
Measuring Population Growth Rates
The human development index (HDI) is the primary index used by the United Nations Development Program to monitor and evaluate human development worldwide. It is a relatively broad evaluation of a country’s human capital, health conditions and living standard. The total fertility rates (TFR) have been part of the measuring stick for determining a nation’s degree of development on the worldwide scale.
The New Fertility Rate Study
The conclusion that birth rates in highly developed countries are growing rather than diminishing comes from a study recently conducted by University of Pennsylvania Professor of Sociology Hans-Peter Kohler, his former graduate student Mikko Myrskyla, now at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, and Francesco Billari, professor of demography at the Universita Bocconi in Milan, Italy.
This team conducted comparisons of the TFR and HDI for 24 developed countries. In addition to presenting a descriptive analysis of the pattern, the researchers also developed a statistical model which indicated their findings were significant.
Rising Birth Rates in Most Developed Nations
The study showed that the United States had the highest birth rate increase and Italy the lowest. Only three of the 24 most advanced countries — Canada, Japan and South Korea — showed the traditional declining birth rate. It should be noted that the increased birth rates at present only show a trend of reversing the declining birth rates. The U. S., even though it had the highest increase, is still only at “the replacement rate”. The rate of increase, however, is high enough that if it continues another decade, the demographic impact will require policy adjustments in the planning, financing and administration of governmental programs.
Professor Kohler summed it up this way: "The main thing we can say at this point is that countries should develop in a way that allows for a better combination of human capital accumulation, labor force participation and having children." That sounds like a welcome shift away from quantity to quality of life.
Details of the study may be read in the paper published in the August, 2009 issue of the scientific journal Nature.
 |
 |
 |
 |
