BIRTH RATESHow to Reverse Nation’s Declining Birth Rate
Health experts urge policies that buoy families: lower living costs, affordable childcare, help for older parents who want more kids
Financial-incentive programs for prospective parents don’t work as a way to reverse falling birth rates, Harvard health experts said on Tuesday about a policy option that has been in the news in recent months.
Instead, they said, a more effective approach would be to target issues that make parenting difficult: the high cost of living, a lack of affordable childcare, and better options for older parents who still want to see their families grow.
The discussion, held at The Studio at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, came in the wake of a July report from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention that showed that the U.S. fertility rate was down 22 percent since the last peak in 2007.
Ana Langer, professor of the practice of public health, emerita, said the causes of fertility decline are numerous, complex, and difficult to reverse.
Surveys investigating why people might not want children cite things such as the cost of living, negative medical experiences from previous pregnancies, and wariness about major global issues such as climate change. In fact, she said, many survey respondents are surprised that declining fertility is even a problem and say they’re more concerned about overpopulation and its impacts on the planet.
The landscape is complicated by the fact that U.S. society has changed significantly since the 1960s, when expectations were that virtually everyone wanted to raise a family. Today, she said, people feel free to focus on careers rather than families, and there is far greater acceptance of those who decide never to have children.
Margaret Anne McConnell, the Chan School’s Bruce A. Beal, Robert L. Beal and Alexander S. Beal Professor of Global Health Economics, said some of the factors that have contributed to the declining birth rate reflect positive cultural shifts.
Fertility rates are falling fastest, for example, in the youngest demographic, girls age 15 to 20. Teen pregnancy has been long considered a societal ill and is associated with difficult pregnancies, poor infant health, interrupted education, and poor job prospects.
Other factors include the widespread availability of birth control, which gives women more reproductive choice, as well as the increasing share of women in higher education and the workforce.
