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Latest Government figures showed the city had the fourth lowest number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in the UK in 2014, with 43.9. Only the City of London, Camden and Canterbury were lower. The statistics also show a decline over the past few years, with the rate dropping from 48.4 in 2012 to 46.3 in 2013. |
An enquiring journalist rang me this week to comment on new data from the Office for National Statistics. The resulting article – about the low levels of fertility in Oxford City – some of the lowest levels in the country - which made it to the front page of the Oxford Times was interesting in several respects.
Firstly, while I gave a variety of reasons why women in Oxford might be bearing fewer children at present, it was the one comment about the price of housing which was focused upon. Now while there is evidence that place of residence and housing availability may impact upon fertility decisions (see Kulu’s work below for example) – this was but a very small part of the evidence I produced.
In fact low fertility has dominated fertility research in advanced societies, since the early-mid 1980s, when countries in the more developed regions were experiencing a baby-bust, demographers have researched the causes and consequences of what is called below-replacement fertility (that is levels of fertility that mean a population is unable to replace itself, but this does unfortunately not take migration into account).
And indeed it is the topic of a possible reversal of the fertility decline in many advanced countries which has drawn more attention (OECD 2011).
The main question is what is altering both the timing of child birth with a general delaying of first birth and an increase in older mothers, and reducing the overall number of children born. Is it changing partnership patterns – delaying of both cohabitation and marriage – changing gender roles both in the home and at work, increases in women's education and labour market participation, the impact of economic uncertainty and the recent economic recession? Indeed the complexity is evident when one considers that there is some evidence that lower educated mothers respond to economic uncertainty by adopting the role of mothers, while their highly educated women postpone childbearing (Billingsley 2010; Goldstein et al. 2009; Kreyenfeld 2010).
Secondly, was the fact that the journalist felt that low fertility in Oxford was a problem which ought to be addressed. How can we raise Oxford’s fertility? Seemed to be the thrust of the questioning.
”Slowing the rise in human numbers is essential for the planet…” Engelman, Scientific American, June 2009
So surely, low fertility is good for the planet? But is it good for us as individuals? Is it good for our families? Is it good for our communities?
The historic low levels of fertility in the 1980s declined even further, and although levels have recovered in some countries but remain below replacement level, today, outside the more developed regions, fertility almost everywhere is declining and population forecasts from the United Nations suggest population stabilization by the middle of the 21st century at around 10 billion people – still too many, some will say.
In this respect, we must ask if low fertility is actually the kind of social problem we would like to have in as much as it has solved the potentially more threatening social problem of continued population growth. But of course, in a demographic climate of low fertility, we also have increasing life expectancies and ageing of our populations. So, perhaps we have successfully addressed one issue (population growth) but raised a second (population ageing), akin to a demographic hydra.
So low fertility leads to ageing populations and could even lead to population decline for some countries where migration is unable to compensate. Forecasts also suggest that the Old World’s share of global population will decline. Low fertility also means fewer workers entering future labour markets and perhaps threatens competitiveness in our globalised world. (But did I hear someone say; what about technology and the movement of labour around the globe? I am sure I did….. another post for another time….)
If we regard low fertility as a problem, we should be asking ourselves why our young generations have given up on having children and we may well discover that there are fundamentally much more serious problems at the heart of the matter.
“Families do not find the environment in which they live conducive to child-bearing” Green Paper: Confronting demographic change, March 2005
The question quite simply is: how does a society allow and enable women to have the children they desire and at the same time ensure the children that society needs?
Perhaps it is house prices, as suggested by the Oxford Times. Or perhaps it is something completely different.
Kulu, H., & Boyle, P. J. (2009). High fertility in city suburbs: Compositional or contextual effects? European Journal of Population, 25(2), 157–174.
Kulu, H., & Vikat, A. (2007). Fertility differences by housing type: The effect of housing conditions or of selective moves? Demographic Research, 17(26), 775–802.
Kulu, H., Boyle, P. & Andersson, G. (2009). High suburban fertility: Evidence from Four Northern European Countries. Demographic Research, 21(31), 915–944.
Billingsley, S. (2010) The post-communist fertility puzzle. Population Research and Policy Review, 29(2), 193–231.
Goldstein, J. R., Sobotka, T., & Jasilioniene, A. (2009). The end of lowest-low fertility? Population and Development Review, 35(4), 663–700.
Kreyenfeld, M. (2010) Uncertainties in female employment careers and the postponement of parenthood in Germany. European Sociological Review, 26(3), 351–366.
OECD (2011) Doing better for families. OECD Publishing.
About the Author
Dr. George W. Leeson is Co-Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, University of Oxford.
Opinions of the blogger is their own and not endorsed by the Institute
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