lower fertility and sustainability

8/14/2019 Lower Fertility and Sustainability

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WORLDWATCHWORLDWATCHVision for a Sustainable World

Excerpted from the September/October 2004 WORLD WATCH magazine 2004 Worldwatch Institute

PopulationAND ITS DISCONTENTSPopulationAND ITS DISCONTENTS

For more information related to the issues pre-

sented in this special issue, links, and interactives,

visit the Worldwatch special online feature on popu-

lation at www.worldwatch.org/features/population/.

One of 12 features in this special issue


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WORLDWATCH September/October 200450

Martha Farnsworth Riche

Low Fertility and Sustainability

Motivation to stabilize population can be undermined by

excessive worry that smaller numbers of young people

will be supporting larger numbers of the elderly. But pre-

vailing patterns of behavior and resource allocation can

be changed in ways that reduce pensioner/worker ratios

and make population stabilization more politically viable.

ntil a few years ago, environmentalists led thecall for population control in the cause of sus-tainability. Their ideas about limiting fertility soenraged global womens advocates that popu-lation didnt even make the agenda at the 1992

Rio conference on the environment. When the UnitedStates developed a new, consensus-based position forthe International Conference on Population andDevelopment, held in Cairo in 1994, many environ-

mentalists contested the new focus on helping womenaround the world have as many or as few children asthey wanted. When I explained the Cairo Consen-sus at a town meeting in San Antonio, Texas, oneman responded, For the next 20 years no womenshould be allowed to have children, and only one in20 should be allowed to have one child for the fol-lowing 20 years!

Now even staunch sustainability supporters arebeginning to worry that unprecedented low fertilityrates in some countries threaten sustainability by pop-ulation declines. Why the turnaround, especially when

the world is adding to its numbers rapidly? The answerseems to be a fear that declines in some countries willtake hold globally, and then well all go to hell in a hand-basket. Or, as Michael Teitelbaum and Jay Winter,authors ofThe Fear of Population Decline, put it, If and

when population decline takes place, there are bothrational and irrational reasons to pay attention. All toooften over the past century, the irrational has provideda convenient means of explaining away social, political,and economic problems by invoking distortedmetaphors from biology.

Lets calm down and take a reasoned look. First, the

population declines expected in countries such as Ger-

many, Japan, and Italy are taking place while world pop-ulation keeps growing. The United Nations currentlyprojects that world population will rise from its currentlevel of 6.4 billion to somewhere between 7.4 and12.8 billion by 2050, attaining between 5.5 and 43.6billion by the end of the century. Demographers find

both the high and low bounds to these longer-term pro-jections illustrative but unrealistic; their purpose is todelimit the range of possibilities suggested by currenttrends. However, many non-demographers are treatingthe low projection as gospel. This scenario assumesthat fertility in all countries will fall to around 1.6 chil-dren per woman (the average level expected for Ger-many, Italy, and Japan) and never again attain thetwo-child replacement level.

Demographers still dont know to what extentvery low fertility is temporary (the result of shifting tolater child-bearing) or permanent (a change in ideal

family size). As John Bongaarts of the New York-based Population Council says, Its fair to say thatthe demographic community has been surprised bythese trends.

(This isnt the first time fertility swings have sur-prised demographers. Most Americans are aware thata Baby Boom erupted after World War II and lasteduntil the Pill gave women control over their fertility, butfew now remember the downturn in births before theboom. In an illustration of how new developmentscause good projections to go bad, Philip Hauser pro-

jected in the 1940s that U.S. population would peak in

1990 at 190 million! In 2004, were more than 100 mil-lion past that peak. Thats why demographers dont

view projections as predictions, but simply as illustra-tions of how things could go absent new develop-ments, whether willed or unanticipated.)

Demographers have not yet untangled the relativeimpact of the reasons for very low fertility, either, buthave reached consensus that the overall cause is thechanging costs of rearing children under moderniza-tion. Modern economies are built on a more educatedlabor force, increasing both the direct costs to parentsof investing in children and the indirect costs of a par-

ent not working.

U


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September/October 2004 WORLDWATCH 51

Factors

Experiences in a variety of countries offer a naturallaboratory for studying the effects of cultural differencesin this new context. Northern European women (alsoU.S. non-Hispanic women) have fertility rates that areonly slightly below replacement level. Not coinciden-tally, in these countries relatively large numbers of chil-dren are born outside marriage. In countries where theculture accepts children as more important than mar-riage (even if it prefers marriage), simultaneously accept-ing moderate levels of immigrationcan sustain or grow population.In contrast, in the countries facingpopulation decline, strong culturaltraditions limit both fertility andimmigration. In these countries,society does not accept cohabita-

tion in lieu of marriage for child-bearing, and children tend to live

with their parents until marriage.Public policies can make a dif-

ference. There is some evidencethat flexible working conditionsfor parents and/or generousnational child benefits help peo-ple who want an additional child tohave it. Take France, with its rela-tively high fertility rate (forEurope) and high rate of female

participation in the labor force:part-time work schedules are wide-spread, childcare is subsidized, andthe government gives generouschild allowances.

Parents economic security clearly makes a fertil-ity difference in wealthy countries, including theUnited States, where the longstanding relationshipbetween womens education and work, on the onehand, and the number of children they have, on theother, seems to have reversed. Since the 1990s, higherfertility has been associated with having two earners

in a household, high levels of child benefits, and/orworking mothers. At the same time, income levels havebecome less important except for non-marital child-bearing, i.e., having children with no economic or care-giving safety net.

Meanwhile, countries with very low fertility sufferfrom what demographers call maternal role incompat-ibility. In these countries, both work and family systemsare less egalitarian: stores arent open when workingmothers need to shop, husbands dont share child careand housework, and employers dont offer flexible

working conditions. How gender inequality plays out

varies from country to country: in Japan, women are

delaying marriage; in Spain, women are choosingbetween work and family once theyve had their firstchild; and in Italy, women are limiting themselves to onechild whether or not they work.

Thus, where institutions and family members adaptto the increasing costs of children, couples come closerto having the two children most people in industrial-ized countries still say they want. Still, John Bongaartsestimates that in countries where modern conditionsprevail, policy has a narrow range to work in: between1.6 and 2.0 children per woman.

Fears

Many concerns about people in low-fertility countries

choosing to have one child instead of two, or twoinstead of three, arise from the disparity with othercountries, especially countries in Sub-Saharan Africa,South Asia, and the Middle Eastmore of them,fewer of us. Currently, 99 percent of the worlds pop-ulation growth is in developing countries.

Concerns over national power or cultural heritageare common in countries where fertility is currently solow that projecting population 200 years out usingtodays rates produces zero population. It is hard toimagine that no one would be living in Italy or Japantwo centuries from now, as others would surely move

inbut for those for whom cultural heritage is defin-

Under globalization both workers and jobs sometimes

migrate: a call center in Bangalore, India.

Stringer/India/REUTERS 2003


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ing, they wouldnt be Italian or Japanese. Low-fer-tility countries with high-fertility neighbors, such as Aus-tralia and New Zealand, fear threats to their physicalsecurity and political power. A few years ago, The Aus-tralianwrote that the countrys low fertility wouldresult in pressure from crowded neighboring coun-tries and a declining say in world affairs.

A more widely held fear is that the large numbersof youth in developing countriesdouble the popula-tion share in developed onesaugur a continued andperhaps increasing supply of immigrants to developedcountries, as well as a larger underemployed labor forceat home. By and large, less-developed countries do nothave enough economic activity to employ their currentpopulations, let alone the large generations yet to reach

working age. Given the normal reluctance to leaveones family and culture, these growing numbers of job-seekers should continue to stimulate employer migra-tion to low wage labor markets, especially in countries

that have invested heavily in education.

Beyond economic and cultural concerns, nationalsecurity specialists are focusing on population dispari-ties with countries that have high rates of populationgrowth and have underinvested in their labor force.Countries with populations of 10 million or more andmore than 40 percent of the population under age 15include such troubled spots as Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi

Arabia, Nigeria, and Sudan. It is hard to avoid the fearthat large and growing numbers of unemployed youththreaten world stability.

Flaws

But what if low fertility goes global? Keynes famousremark, In the long run we are all dead, is apropos,as long-term projections of current trends are designedto give policymakers an opportunity to influence afuture they wont see. Indeed, influencing policymak-ers is the shared agenda of many popular assessmentsof very low fertility, though stated overtly only bydirect opponents of family planning.

These opponents argue that if world fertility ratesmay eventually match those in countries with very lowfertility, as the UNs low scenario assumes, wealthy

countries should immediately stop helping women in

Can governments cope? Gaza unemployed protest the Pales-

tinian Authoritys failure to provide jobs

Ahmed Jadallah/REUTERS 2002


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September/October 2004 WORLDWATCH 53

poor countries gain control of their fertility. Leavingaside the moral issue of letting others endure life-threatening conditions that global Northerners wontaccept, if these advocates get their way you can forgetabout global population stabilization, let alone decline,in the lifetime of anyone now born. With one in threeof the worlds citizens currently under age 15, thecoming parent explosion will send world popula-tion to over 10 billion in the next 40 years, if currentfertility declines are slowed or halted.

Whether for individual countries or the globe, all thedoom-and-gloom portrayals of population decline areflawed in fundamental ways. They tend to be con-structed from selected facts taken out of context, andthey are static; they overlook the way change in one vari-able causes others to change. No one has yet done a sys-tematic, dynamic analysis of how populations mightfunction if they got smaller, one that accounts for the

ways economic, social, technological, and environ-mental changes can affect one another. Populationdecline is simply too new.

But, while we are waiting for such an analysis, whywould having fewer people be bad? The argumentsthat resonate across all low-fertility countries, accord-ing to a survey of the popular press conducted byLaura Stark and Hans-Peter Kohler, are economic.

The most common argument, the effect on bene-fit systems from a rise in dependency, reflects a uni-form result of all projection scenarios: they showsignificant growth in virtually all countries, both absolute

and relative, in the 50+ population due to increasing lifeexpectancy. More people living into old age is a par-ticular challenge as public benefit systems tend to bepay-as-you-go, i.e. retirees benefits are funded by pay-ments into the system by current workers, whose ownbenefits will be funded by payments from future work-ers. It was politically easy to design such systems when

workers were much more numerous than retirees, butnow this ratio is changing, especially where very low fer-tility will shrink the working-age population while theolder population expands.

These arguments assume that legally set age thresh-

olds for dependency18 to 60 or 65 in industrializedcountrieswill continue to represent reality, and thatage-related behavior is constant. But these thresholdsare not even representative now. One aspect of mod-ernization is that young adults are dependent well intotheir 20s. Succeeding in modern economies requiresmore schooling, and more trial and error to get situ-ated; its no surprise that so many young adults still live

with their parents. So current assumptions overstate howmany youth will pay into systems, especially in coun-tries that have very high youth unemployment (anotherdamper on fertility).

Meanwhile, across the industrialized world, stunning

advances in healthy life expectancy (meaning years oflife in which people can physically take care of them-selves) challenge the assumption of dependency in the60s and beyond. In the United States, people whoneeded the money worked after age 65 before we hadSocial Security (in 1930, nearly three in five men pastthis age were gainfully employed); no one has yetargued convincingly that increasingly healthy sexage-narians cant do it again. Instead, doom-and-gloom

writers make such selective arguments as the effects ofincreasing obesity among people under age 60 on theirability to work after 60, while selectively ignoring thecorresponding shift away from physically demanding tosedentary jobs, or the shift towards occupations and jobsthat people likeand are continuing to work at regard-less of their age.

These trends suggest other, perhaps easier policyoptions besides boosting population by accepting more

immigrants, or spending large amounts on subsidizedchild care and other family benefits to increase fertility.In most low-fertility countries, simply increasing laborforce participation under age 65 would improve the

worker/retiree ratio. In Italy, for example, just erasingthe gap between mens and womens rates would cutthe pensioner/worker ratio by over 20 percent by 2050,John Bongaarts estimates.

Reversing tax and benefit incentives to retire before65 is another obvious change (especially in countries likeGermany where early retirement is common), as isdesigning incentives to work after 65. Bongaarts esti-

mates that every one-year increase in the average retire-ment age would reduce the pensioner/worker ratio in2050 by 6 percent. Deploying only one of these pol-icy options would probably not avoid higher taxes (inrelatively low tax countries) or benefit cuts (in relativelyhigh benefit countries), but in combination, they canhelp most countries avoid these unattractive choices.

The broader concern about low fertility is thatimproving economic wellbeing requires a steadilyincreasing population. We cant prove that it doesnt,because population decline/stability is so new. But weknow how we can compensate for it: by making the pol-

icy changes that maximize longer life spans throughincreasing workers productivity, fostering wise indi-

vidual decisions in relation to working and spending,and adapting the social contract as to the age andlength of time people should be taken care of.

The World Bank has found, for instance, that sim-ply ensuring gender equality allocates resources, includ-ing investments, more productively (including reducingthe role of corruption). Others have found that slow-ing population growth allows more investment inhuman and other capital, and intensifies the

worker/capital ratio (other things equal). In itself, the

shift to more older people makes savings and investment


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a bigger priority, contributing to economic growth as well as providing economic security for individuals.From this perspective, the problem of low fertility isthe institutional transfer system. How best to changeit is a political issue.

Its a business issue too. Some argue that elderlypeople consume more than youth, mostly in health-related expenses; others argue that having more elderlypeople will repress aggregate demand. Some argueboth; for these worriers, demand for what? is thequestion. Businesses that make toys for teenagers may

suffer, while those involved in health care can prosper.Speculative investments may have a harder time attract-

ing investors, more prudent ones probably wont. Aswith most such arguments, the underlying tension ismore about who wins, and who loses, than about theeconomy as a whole.

Fundamental Shifts

These arguments also reveal a conflict over whatresources are worth investing in. Philip Longman,author ofThe Coming Baby Bust, is concerned that asmaller youth population will make military actionsmore difficult in most nations. Its not just the num-bers, he argues, but with only one or two children per

family, parents will be less willing to put their children

in harms way. And with more financial resources goingto pensions and health care, governments will haveless to spend on technologies designed to make fewer

warriors more productive. For planetary sustainability,this demographic change is probably positive.

Whether population declines, stabilizes, or growsmore slowly, the change in age structure produced bylower fertility and longer life expectancy may be themost important demographic influence on sustainabil-ity because it produces more households, at least inaffluent countries, with more age-diverse householders.

Other things equal, more house-holds increase energy use, popula-tion density, and other concerns ofenvironmentalists. Other thingsequal, more older householders willincrease investment at the expense ofspending, shift spending away from

goods and toward services, and evenshift focus from indiscriminategrowth to improved welfare. Per-haps the new Italian University ofGastronomic Sciences is a first stepin a redefinition of progress, awayfrom more toward better.

It all comes down to people and whether they care enough aboutsustainability to make lifestylechanges. It also comes down to theusual politics of self-interest. Maybe

conflict over resource and spendingpriorities explains the real demo-graphic puzzle: why people worriedabout low fertility rates are over-

whelmingly maleand, in the West,overwhelmingly white.

For women who write about these issues, increas-ing our investment in people, their health, and theirproductivity tends to be a good scenario. For nonwhitemen and women, the prospect of releasing people ofcolor from poverty no matter where they live is along-held dream. For those who care about sustain-

abilitya culture that ensures the survival and thriv-ing of humans and the Earths other creatures for along time to comethe prospect of a world popula-tion that could be smaller than it will be at the end ofthis century, but larger than it is now, is no nightmarebut a promise.

The Honorable Martha Farnsworth Riche is a demo-graphic consultant, a founding editor ofAmericanDemographics magazine, and former director of theUnited States Census Bureau (19941998).

References and readings for each article are available at

www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/.

and unemployed graduates take part in an ongoing jobs

protest outside a railway station in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Zainal Abd Halim/REUTERS 2003

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