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Research Question —                                                                 The relation between women's status, birth rate, and the economy.

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Research Question —                                                                 The relation between women's status, birth rate, and the economy.

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Why do women's status and the economy affect birth rates?

How do birth rates affect the economy?

How does the economy affect women's status?

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Source #1 —The Decline in Fertility: The Role of Marriage and Education

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Source #1 —The Decline in Fertility: The Role of Marriage and Education

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The Decline in Fertility: The Role of Marriage and Education — Penn Wharton Budget Model

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We relate the decline in the birth rate to two demographic factors closely associated with women’s fertility patterns: marriage and educational attainment. Married women are at least three percentage points more likely to have a child than unmarried women, and simultaneously marriage rates among wom

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Source #2 — Female education and its impact on fertility

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Source #2 — Female education and its impact on fertility

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Female education and its impact on fertility

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Additional female educational attainment generally lowers fertility, but the relationship is complex

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Source #3 — Women’s Status and Fertility Rates

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Source #3 — Women’s Status and Fertility Rates

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About this Project Welcome to WorldPopulationHistory.org, an interactive site that lets you explore the peopling of our planet from multiple perspectives – historical, environmental, social and political. It is about the 2,000-year journey of human civilization and the possible paths ahead to the middle of this century. The genesis of this project was World Population, […]

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This article looks at why birth rates are falling in the United States. It says that while fewer people are getting married, a bigger reason is that women are getting more education. Going to college or university often leads women to delay having children and to have fewer children overall. This is because they have strong career goals and staying home to raise kids means giving up a good income.

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This source takes a worldwide view. It agrees that more education for women leads to lower birth rates everywhere. It explains how this happens. School gives women the opportunity to learn about their bodies, such as health and birth control, provides better job options that make having children more expensive, and leads women to get married later. It also mentions a possible economic benefit called the "demographic dividend," where a country's economy can grow when it has a large working age population.

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This website provides the important background story. It uses maps and timelines to show how the human population has exploded over the last 100 years and how it is expected to slow down and even shrink because of low birth rates. This source helps us understand why falling birth rates are such a big deal for the entire planet.

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Data: The information comes from a trusted team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, located in the U.S, making it very reliable.

Interpretation: The explanation is clear and makes sense. It uses the economic idea of "opportunity cost" ( what you give up to do something else) to explain why educated women often choose to have fewer kids.

Graphics: The given charts are simple and easy to follow. They show a clear line going down as women advance with their education, the line goes up, and at the same time, the birth rate line goes down.

Published on July 8, 2022
Evaluation: The team claims to provide accurate and transparent information about economic analysis to the public. The explanation is clear and makes sense. The chart they provided is simple and easy to understand, helping support the article's main point.

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Who: Jungho Kim. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University in May 2005 and is a Professor at Ajou University.
Currency: The data is from 2015, which is a few years old, but the core idea that education lowers birth rates is still proven to be true today.

Relevance: This perfectly relates to my topic because it gives a global perspective that adds to the first source's U.S. focus.

Authority: IZA is a well known, non profit research group focused on economic issues. The author is an expert, which makes this source trustworthy.

Accuracy: The information is based on facts and data from other studies and presented in a neutral way.

Purpose: The goal is to answer and give an accurate perspective on what leads to a lower birth rate worldwide.

Published on May 2023

Evaluation: This source is reliable because the author is an expert and the organization that published it is trustworthy. The main idea of the article is still correct today, even though some data is from 2015. The goal of the article is to share facts, not to sell anything or push an opinion. So, we can believe the information it provides.

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Who: The project is run by serious organizations like the Population Reference Bureau and National Geographic. These groups are trustworthy and neutral.

What: It is an educational website with interactive tools that show population data.

When: The website uses the most recent population estimates and projections available.

Where: It looks at the entire world, which is necessary for this topic.

Why: The purpose is to teach people. It simply shows the facts about population growth without arguing for a specific side.

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Declining birth rate in Developed Countries: A radical policy re-think is required

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There is a concern about declining birth rates in both the developing and developed world (www.rand.org). Fertility rates tend to be higher in poorly resourced countries but due to high maternal and perinatal mortality, there is a reduction in birth rates. In developing countries children are needed as a labour force and to provide care for their parents in old age. In these countries, fertility rates are higher due to the lack of access to contraceptives and generally lower levels of female education. The social structure, religious beliefs, economic prosperity and urbanisation within each country are likely to affect birth rates as well as abortion rates, Developed countries tend to have a lower fertility rate due to lifestyle choices associated with economic affluence where mortality rates are low, birth control is easily accessible and children often can become an economic drain caused by housing, education cost and other cost involved in bringing up children. Higher education and professional careers often mean that women have children late in life. This can result in a demographic economic paradox.

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Econofact | Key facts and incisive analysis to the national debate on economic and social policies.

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By Melissa Kearney, Phillip Levine and Luke Pardue ·
University of Maryland and Wellesley College

The Issue:

Up until the Great Recession, the number of babies born per woman in the United States had been quite stable for the previous three decades. The birth rate fluctuated within a relatively narrow range, often along with economic conditions, with fewer babies born during lean times and with births recovering when economic growth was stronger. However, the U.S. birth rate has fallen precipitously since the 2007 Great Recession, with no signs of reversing. This decline cannot be explained by demographic, economic, or policy changes. It is reflective of lower childbearing rates across successive cohorts.

The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007. This decline cannot be explained by demographic, economic, or policy changes.

The Facts:

The Great Recession disrupted a stable period in birth rates. For the almost three decades between 1980 and 2007, the U.S. birth rate hovered between 65 and 70 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44. The birth rate followed a predictable pro-cyclical pattern, falling during economic downturns and recovering when the economy improves. But something changed around the time of the Great Recession; the birth rate fell precipitously, and it did not recover when the economy improved. Rather, the U.S. birth rate has continued a steady descent. As of 2020, the U.S. birth rate was 55.8 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, a decline of almost 20 percent from the rate of 69.3 in 2007.

The decline in births cannot readily be explained by changing population composition. The sustained decline in U.S. births since 2007 has been driven by declining births among many demographic groups, rather than by changes in population composition. Births have fallen among women in their early 20s, late 20s, and teens (in fact, the teen birth rate in the U.S. has been falling steadily since the mid-1990s). Births have fallen among white women, Black women, and Hispanic women, with the largest declines among Hispanic women. Births have also fallen among women with and without college degrees and among both married and unmarried women. The population of U.S. women of childbearing age has actually shifted toward groups that tend to have higher birth rates, not lower birth rates, with the exception of a rising share of women of childbearing age being unmarried.

No obvious policy or economic factor can explain much of the decline. The onset of the Great Recession clearly played a role in the early stages of the decline. Beyond that, it is difficult to identify any policy or economic factor that can statistically account for the continued decline. Casual observers have suggested that a variety of potential factors are responsible for the decline, including greater take-up of highly effective contraception, the high cost of raising children, improved occupational opportunities for women, and the high level of student debt carried by young adults. Our research finds little empirical support for these possible explanations. Moreover, none of the measures that have been shown in previous research to have a causal effect on annual birth rates - such as labor market conditions (beyond the Great Recession), certain social policy indicators (such as child support enforcement) or reproductive health policy measures (such as abortion clinic closures) - have changed in ways that can account for the drop in the national birth rate since 2007.

Successive generations of women are having fewer children at every age. While the largest decreases in birth rates have occurred amongst women under 30, it is possible that this reflects more than a general tendency among women to delay childbirth and that there are generational changes taking place. Cohorts of U.S. women born after the mid-1980s are having fewer births at all ages. The above figure shows that subsequent cohorts of women who were born in the windows 1968 to 1972, 1973 to 1977, and 1978 to1982 all had similar childbearing age profiles throughout their lives. Then, the cohort of women born between 1983 and 1987 had fewer children throughout their 20s and their 30s. The next two five-year birth cohorts of women (born between 1988 and 1997) have fewer children than earlier cohorts. In other words, later cohorts of mothers have fewer children at every age than women in earlier cohorts. The likelihood of births "catching up" at older ages across these cohorts seems limited.

Shifting priorities could be the primary driver for the decline in the birth rate since 2007. There is survey and anecdotal data suggesting that perhaps more recent cohorts of young adults have different preferences for having children, aspirations for life, and views about parenting norms that are driving the decline in the U.S. birth rates. These shifts could reflect preferences and norms that changed primarily in earlier decades, long before 2007 - such as more intensive parenting practices and expanded economic opportunities for women - in ways that profoundly shaped the world views of today's younger adults.

A sustained decline in the birth rate would have important social and economic consequences. A temporary decline in annual birth rates does not necessarily portend social and economic challenges. However, the decline in annual birth rates in the U.S. has been ongoing for many years and as shown above, corresponds to a decline in the number of children a woman has over her lifetime, on average. This trend predicts a persistently lower fertility rate in the U.S., which, absent increased immigration, would lead to a smaller workforce and an older population. In general, a smaller workforce and an aging population would have negative implications for economic productivity and per capita income growth. In addition, the combination of a smaller workforce and an aging population puts fiscal pressure on social insurance programs, like Social Security, that rely on tax payments from current workers to pay the benefits of current retirees. Some observers point to the idea that, all else equal, a shrinking population will reduce humans' carbon footprint, and hence have positive environmental effects. We are not aware of any evidence, though, that population declines corresponding to the size of the drop in U.S. fertility would have a meaningful effect on climate outcomes.

The onset of the COVID pandemic added another layer of uncertainty to childbearing trends in the United States. Births conceived between the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 and the end of that year fell by around 60,000. This is a smaller drop than many had expected, given the dramatic rise in unemployment and in economic and public health uncertainty at the outset of the pandemic. It is possible that government assistance blunted the economic impact of the pandemic on many families.

Although the 2007 recession seems to have played a role in decreasing the number of children born per woman in the United States, the lack of any rebound in births and, in fact, their continued decline following the end of the recession suggests a role for factors beyond the Great Recession. A decline in annual birth rates does not necessarily imply a long-term reduction in childbearing. If the recent decline in annual birth rates simply reflects women pushing off having children from their 20s to their 30s, then annual birth rates will eventually rebound and the total number of children the average U.S. woman has over her lifetime will not change. But the decline in annual birth rates since 2007 is consistent with more recent cohorts of women having fewer births. Those cohorts have not completed their childbearing years yet, but the number of births they would have to have at older ages to catch up to the lifetime childbearing rates of earlier cohorts is so large that it seems unlikely they will do so. If the decline in births reflects a (semi)permanent shift in priorities, as opposed to transitory economic or policy factors, the U.S. is likely to see a sustained decline in birth rates and a general decline in fertility for the foreseeable future. This has consequences for projected U.S. economic growth and productivity, as well as the fiscal sustainability of current social insurance programs.

Editor's Note: The analysis in this memo is based on Kearney, Melissa S., Phillip B. Levine, and Luke Pardue. 2022. "The Puzzle of Falling US Birth Rates since the Great Recession." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 36 (1): 151-76.

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The Mystery of the Declining U.S. Birth Rate | Econofact

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The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007. If sustained, this could impact economic growth, productivity, and social insurance programs down the line.

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Cover image caption: Economic development and Women’ Rights (credits: Sciences Po Banque d’Images)

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The role of economic factors in the evolution of women’s rights

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Is there a direct link between economic development and expansions of women’s rights? To what extent can economic analyses contribute to our understanding of these issues?

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This research paper tries to answer a simple question: does more education directly cause women to have fewer children? It uses a special method to study this and concludes that the answer is yes. It finds that higher education leads women to delay having their first child and to want fewer children overall. This supports the idea that education changes a woman's personal goals and plans.

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Currency (2014): The article was published in 2014. This is older than the other sources, but the question it answers is a fundamental one, and its findings are still considered very important and correct today.

Relevance: This is extremely relevant. It gets to the very heart of your research question: "How does women's status affect birth rates?" It provides strong evidence for a direct cause and effect link between the two.

Authority: This is published in a scientific journal and found on the National Institutes of Health website. The NIH is a major U.S. government agency for health research, making it a very authoritative and trustworthy source.

Accuracy: The information is based on a scientific study that uses data and a specific method to prove its point. It is presented formally like a research paper.

Purpose: The purpose is to share new research findings with the scientific community. The goal is to inform and advance knowledge, not to sell anything.

Evaluation: This is a very useful source because it adds more reasons for the falling birth rate. It shows that it's not just about women's education, but also about bigger economic problems that make it harder for young people to afford having children.

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This article explains that the birth rate in the U.S. is falling, and it's a bit of a mystery why. It looks at many reasons, like the high cost of raising a child (housing, healthcare, childcare), more student debt, and the fact that people are getting married later. It also says that while more education for women is a part of it, the recent drop is happening among all groups, so money problems and stress are likely big factors.

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Who: The author is a Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. The website, Econofact, is run by a team of respected economists from top universities. This makes the source an authority on the topic.

What: The article provides an overview of the economic and social forces driving down birth rates. It uses data and research to support its claims.

When: The article was published in 2019. the economic trends it discusses (high costs, student debt) have continued or gotten worse, making the analysis still very relevant today.

Where: It focuses on the United States, which provides a specific national context that complements the global sources in the dashboard.

Why: The purpose of Econofact is to present non partisan, evidence based analysis of economic issues to inform the public. It is not trying to sell anything or promote a political view, which makes its information trustworthy.

Evaluation: This is a highly reliable and useful source. It is written by experts, uses evidence, and provides a more complete picture by explaining the many economic pressures affecting birth rates, not just the role of education.

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This article looks at the connection from the other side: how the economy affects women's status. It explains that when economies grow and develop, they create more office and service jobs. These new jobs are often more open to hiring women than farm or factory work was. This economic need gives women more opportunities to work, earn their own money, and gain independence. This financial power then helps them fight for and gain more rights.

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Who: The article is from Sciences Po, one of the most famous and respected universities in France, especially for political science and economics. This gives the source strong authority and credibility.

What: It explains the historical link between economic development (growth), new types of jobs, and the improvement of women's rights and status in society.

When: While the article itself doesn't have a clear date, the information is based on long-term historical trends. The core idea that economic change drives social change is a fundamental and lasting concept, making it still very relevant.

Where: It provides a global perspective, discussing broad patterns that have happened in many countries.

Why: The purpose is to educate people on the connection between the economy and women's rights. It is from a university website, so its goal is to share knowledge, not to sell a product or promote a narrow opinion.

Evaluation: This is a very reliable source. It is important because it answers a key part of my research question: "How does the economy affect women's status?" It shows that economic growth creates the jobs that give women financial power, which is a major force behind improving their rights and status in society.