Birth Rate and Women’s Rights in Europe

Abstract

Women are having fewer children than before. This chapter explores the reasons for the decline in birth rate and addresses issues that might be perceived as contributing to such a decline. In addressing this topic, I will consider first the different levels of women’s labour force participation in different industrialised countries because during the last two decades, a crucial demographic change has taken place. On the one hand, fertility rates have sharply decreased in most developed countries to levels below replacement rates, and, on the other, there is now a positive correlation between fertility and female labour participation rates throughout the OECD countries. Economic security for young women and men seems to have a positive effect on having children, and correspondingly, a high unemployment rate or the lack of social arrangements for childcare has a negative effect (as the cases of Italy and Spain show). In the last section, I focus on the evolution of social expenditure for childcare in relation to Gross Domestic Product in different EU countries in an attempt to offer another reason by which to explain the demographic changes outlined in the chapter.