Populations wax and wane for various reasons, but mothers determine whether birth rates rise or fall. What makes them choose to have children?
 | Would-be immigrant babies on the deck of an Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) Search and Rescue boat. In many highly developed countries migrants account for most of the population growth (Photos: Reuters) |
As societies and their women have become more educated, emancipated and wealthy, women have gained greater control over their fertility. They have chosen to have fewer children.
In highly developed countries, fertility has fallen to an average of 1.6 children per woman. In less developed countries, however, it is 2.75 children per woman, whereas in the world’s 50 least developed countries, it is still at 4.6 children. Why are wealth, education and status so intimately linked to women’s fertility?
For Alain Prual, a maternal health expert at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), high birth rates in poor West African countries do not come as a surprise.
“Families want to be sure their children reach adulthood,” says Prual, referring to high child mortality rates in the region. “Many of these countries lack social services, so parents want to know that during retirement, they will have children who can care for them.”
Improved child survival rates, argues Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs, will automatically reduce fertility rates. “If you want poor households to have fewer children, assure them that the children they already have will not be carried off by a mosquito bite,” he says.
In highly developed societies, parents know that their children will almost certainly survive. And with social security and pension systems in place, they also know that their offspring will probably not have to support them in their old age.
Consequently, their focus shifts onto the costs of having children. The financial cost of raising a child up to the age of 21 in the United Kingdom was recently estimated at 180,000 pounds (227,000 euros). That does not include the impact on a mother’s career prospects.
 | Fertility Rates (click on the image to enlarge)A five country comparison of the average number of children per women (Graphic: Allianz) |
These costs partially explain why low fertility rates have generally refused to respond to government measures. Initial gains through baby bonuses, family allowances, increased maternal and paternal leave, and even subsidized child care and housing have tended to be short lived.
“Afterwards…the fertility appears to return to the longer-term low fertility levels,” concluded Joseph Chamie, director of the UN Population Division, in a paper published in 2004.
The education pill
But it is not just the state of their finances that makes couples want fewer babies. Greater education levels and career opportunities for women (and men) have fortified the trend towards fewer babies worldwide. According to figures from UNESCO, the global female illiteracy rate declined from 55 percent in 1970 to just over 30 percent in 2000. In the same period, the global fertility rate dropped from 4.1 to 2.9 children per woman.
“If a girl leaves school, she enters the role of an adult when she is still a child,” explains Ann Cotton, founder of Camfed, a UK-based charity that supports girls’ education in rural areas of Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. “She starts her childrearing years just after puberty. She is in a dependent relationship, and her fertility is determined by her husband.”
If a girl stays in school, says Cotton, she will probably interact with boys as equals, and gain the opportunities and skills to do things other than having children. “Crucially, she is more likely to marry someone of her generation and her choice,” she adds. Camfed found that Zimbabwean women that it had helped through secondary school had, by the age of 24, between 0.5 and 1.0 fewer children than the rural average.
Unfortunately, access to education is closely linked to prosperity. “As poverty rises, and in times of drought, the family can’t sustain the girl’s education,” Cotton explains. “The age of marriage for girls reduces, while bride prices also encourage early marriage.” This extends the girl’s fertile years and the number of babies she will have.
The sad result is often unwanted babies. Kate Worsley, head of the global medical development team at the family planning charity Marie Stopes International, says that some 80 million of the 210 million pregnancies worldwide every year are unwanted.
Contraceptives could prevent most of those unwanted pregnancies, but they are often too expensive or simply not available to poor women. Ignorance also plays a part, says UNFPA’s Alain Prual , who reports a common belief in West Africa that family planning leads to infertility.
Meeting the “unmet need” for contraception, says Kate Worsley, would reduce fertility by 20 percent in some regions. The statistics support her point of view. The global average of contraceptive use by women is 63 percent. In sub-Saharan Africa, the area of highest fertility in the world, it is only 22 percent.
But according to UN estimates, even the poorest countries of the world will see their fertility rates halve over the next fifty years. Developed nations, on the other hand, will experience a slight increase. If the UN is right, more and more women will be exercising their right to make that choice to be or not to be a mother.
editor: James Tulloch
publishing date: July 31, 2008
