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Not so Low Fertility in Norway—A Result of Affluence, Liberal Values, Gender-Equality Ideals, and the Welfare State

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Low Fertility, Institutions, and their Policies

Abstract

In Norway, the total fertility rate over the years 2000–2013 averaged 1.86 births per woman. Women born in 1968, which is the youngest cohort that has completed their reproductive period, had 2.03 children on average. Only 13 % of that cohort remained childless, and 83 % of those who became parents had at least two children. This chapter discusses possible reasons for this high fertility compared to that of most other rich countries. Norway’s advantaged economic position is probably one ingredient. There is little income insecurity for individual families, and the state can afford to be generous with parents, not least with respect to daycare and parental leave. The willingness to prioritize such spending does not reflect concern about below-replacement fertility, but rather the social-liberal or social-democratic ideas about public responsibility for individual well-being that are strongly rooted in Nordic societies, accompanied by widely accepted ideals of gender equality. It is possible that these ideals also affect fertility positively by promoting men’s involvement with children and in housework. Another explanation for Norway’s high fertility may be that, although the retreat from marriage has been as least as pronounced as in most other rich countries, this has been counteracted by widespread cohabitation and a large number of births among cohabiting couples—probably reflecting in part their trust in the welfare state and liberal values. The chapter ends with a discussion of whether lower fertility would, in fact, be a problem for Norway.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In principle, a preference for having at least one boy will increase fertility in settings with generally low or moderate fertility and where the alternatives to achieving such a goal—sex-specific abortion or excess female mortality—are deemed unacceptable. However, sex preferences are typically weak in rich countries outside Asia (Andersson et al. 2006). Also, the “insurance effect,” “replacement effect,” and other effects of mortality on fertility that are important in many parts of the world have little relevance in more-developed countries, given their very low infant and child mortality.

  2. 2.

    Some parents might have returned to work immediately after the leave period regardless of the right to breastfeed or stay home with a sick child and regardless of whether they found a slot for their child in a daycare center or had to make use of other childcare services. In other words, they would have had no opportunity costs of childbearing even with a less generous system. However, such parents might see the generous policies and good access to high-quality daycare as making childrearing more convenient, thus strengthening their childbearing preferences (to be discussed further below).

  3. 3.

    In addition, students who do not live with their parents receive about US$500 per month as a housing subsidy. While this may not be seen as reducing the costs of childrearing in situations where a union has been formed, it facilitates the formation of a union among young students who otherwise would have lived with their parents.

  4. 4.

    It was assumed above, for simplicity, that low fertility can affect the lifestyle and well-being of individual families and also have societal effects through population growth and structure. However, there is another type of externality: The effects that a couple’s fertility has on their own lives—for better or worse—may also have implications for others (which they are not likely to take into account in their decision-making). As mentioned, those with no or few children may, for example, be less integrated into the community, which may be acceptable to them (to the extent that it is foreseen), but there may be less positive implications for other people, one reason being the possible positive health effects of social cohesion (Islam et al. 2006). Another individual-level effect of low fertility is that the mothers will be more likely to have paid work. This will probably have important, and perhaps largely positive, societal implications. A related type of spill-over effect would be, for example, that the entire society may be influenced if it is the case that children without siblings tend to be less sociable than other children. Additionally, the distinction between the micro and the macro perspective is blurred because a couple’s low fertility may contribute to or be partly a result of others’ low fertility through learning and imitation effects (Goldstein et al. 2003; Montgomery and Casterline 1996).

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  1. Department of Economics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Øystein Kravdal

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  1. Øystein Kravdal
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  1. Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    Ronald R. Rindfuss

  2. East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

    Minja Kim Choe

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Kravdal, Ø. (2016). Not so Low Fertility in Norway—A Result of Affluence, Liberal Values, Gender-Equality Ideals, and the Welfare State. In: Rindfuss, R., Choe, M. (eds) Low Fertility, Institutions, and their Policies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32997-0_2

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