The evolution of fertility in rich countries (and in many others) seems to have entered an unstoppable decline. Just a few days ago, the Financial Times warned about how year after year the real figures are below the most pessimistic demographic projections. What’s more, official statistics may not be capturing the intensity of actual declines. Many of us consider this panorama alarming. Finally, this issue, traditionally relegated to academic debate and the agenda of conservative pro-family sectors, is beginning to awaken a broader and more transversal concern.
In Spain, the fertility rate is around 1.12 in 2024, and has been decreasing from 1.18 in 2020 and 1.33 in 2015. Among my demographer colleagues, there are those who say that there is no need to worry. Many of his arguments are not at all banal, they are well founded, and they are stimulating for debate. However, more and more people are questioning the idea that the drop in fertility is only the expression of each person’s freedom, or the manifestation of the preferences of a society as individualistic as ours, which, fortunately, has made it easier for life courses diversify. It is true that we share a diagnosis with other Mediterranean countries: Italy, which almost always ranks next to us in social statistics, barely reaching 1.19. But Greece reaches 1.25; Portugal at 1.42; and France marks a considerable difference with its 1.63. Recovering some of those tenths that separate us from our neighbors through family policies is a realistic and legitimate objective.
To better understand some of the processes that have brought us here, we can compare the ideal number of children and those actually had by those surveyed by the CIS who in 2024 are between 35 and 45 years old. This age group is at a stage in life where many will have made most of their reproductive decisions, and others will be about to do so. Of course, the younger ones have some time left, but not everyone. Furthermore, I am going to show the responses separately for men and women, with and without a university degree. Thus, we can describe a particularity of the Spanish context: fertility among university women seems to be more depressed than one would expect. Although this fact has been known for a long time, in my opinion, it is not present in the media as much as it should.
The preferences: Preferences regarding the ideal number of children in Spain are quite similar between sexes and educational levels. Very few people consider that the ideal is not to have children. This suggests that voluntary infertility, although difficult to separate from non-voluntary infertility, is a minority phenomenon.
Only 10% of those surveyed say that the ideal is to only have one child, while the majority opt for the well-known ruler of two children, which is the preferred option among men and women regardless of their educational level. If there is any difference, it would indicate that university students have a greater inclination towards a three-child model: around three out of ten express this preference, while for all other groups this figure is around 23%.
The reality: Now let’s see how much of these family aspirations translate into reality. When observing how many children have actually been had when reaching the age group 35-45, it is easy to see that there are two groups with greater difficulty in fulfilling their reproductive desires.
As I said, one is well known: that of university women. While almost 90% of university students would like to have two or more children, approximately 35% of them do not have any. This figure drops 10 points among those who do not have university studies. The causes of the worse relative situation of university students in Spain are multiple. University women could have greater difficulties in mating now that they are much more numerous than university men. Furthermore, given most of the gender gap in their work performance seems to actually be a motherhood gap, university women would have greater needs for work-life balance than other groups. These demands should be met so that they do not incur a very high opportunity cost in having the children they want.
Secondly, and perhaps more surprising to some readers, less qualified men have higher levels of infertility than the rest: around 45% of them do not have children at these ages. The surprise is only relative. This data confirms a pattern already observed in other European countries with better statistical sources, according to which men with less qualifications are a particularly fragile group that faces great difficulties in materializing their reproductive preferences throughout their life cycle and, in another order of things, they maintain their social networks worse over time and become more isolated in adult life.
Should we be worried? For two fundamental reasons, I would say yes. On the one hand, beyond individual preferences, having children is associated with an increase in individual well-being. But the most important thing is that many people who want to have children end up not having them, or having fewer than they would like.
AND, what can be done? Policies to promote birth rates have not proven effective. Its impact seems to focus more on “when” you have children than on “how many” you end up having. But the figures from other countries suggest that other policies do matter. I am not referring to the strange ideas that an elected official with the horizon of a mandate may come up with. I am talking about stable and expensive programs in favor of conciliation and the well-being of families, including those that would not otherwise be formed. And all this must be done without complexes. Our social effort is almost exclusively focused on compensating for economic vulnerability. However, social problems are not limited to this source of disadvantage. It would be desirable to broaden the objectives of Spanish social policy, so prone to evaluating based on emotions and so reluctant to think outside the box. As has been seen here, and could be seen in many other aspects if we had the appropriate statistical infrastructures, university women and men with less training are two of the groups that face the most obstacles to meeting their life expectations. Naturally, the solutions that both require are very different. But if their difficulties were part of the objectives of our family policy, we could recover, at least, the tenths that separate us from the fertility of our neighbors.
#invisible #crisis #children #arrive
