Dr Paula Sheppard.
The UK has a fertility gap of around 0.3 children meaning that for every three children wanted only two are born. This phenomenon is largely driven by people starting families later in life. For instance, in 2016, approximately 22% of births were to mothers over age 35 compared with just 6% in 1980.
The picture is very similar across Europe. In 2022 the fertility rate for the EU was 1.46 in 2022 ranging from the lowest rate of 1.08 in Malta to 1.79 in France, the country with the highest birth rate in the EU. This means that in every country in Europe, the birth rate is below replacement rate (two children per couple).
So why are people in the UK leaving it so late to have children? Some key reasons include the expansion of education and career opportunities for women, and broader shifts in gender roles and family dynamics. However, much of the previous research looking at why people are postponing having children is retrospective, carried out only after people have completed their families. This means that results can be decades out of date and not reflect the barriers affecting people right now. To investigate this, we need a different approach.
Discrete choice experiments are commonly used in consumer behaviour research, health economics, and political science to understand preferences and how people ‘trade off’ different factors, referred to as attributes, against each other. For instance, the manufacturer of a new chocolate bar might use discrete choice experiments to understand how consumers value different attributes, such as flavour, size, packaging type, and price by asking people to choose between hypothetical versions with different combinations of these factors.
When it comes to narrowing or eliminating the fertility gap, no one-size policy will be effective; different people have different needs. That said, support networks are an important factor for everyone, whether that’s from partners, family, or friends.
Dr Paula Sheppard
In a study recently published in International Journal of Population Studies, I applied this methodology to fertility decision-making for the first time. Participants (men and women who were open to having a/another child) were presented with a series of choices between alternative hypothetical scenarios. These varied in the degree of partner support, career costs, friends having babies, finances, and the timing of the baby’s arrival. The participants in the study were divided into groups according to education level (university-educated and non-university-educated).
Besides revealing new understanding on the reasons why many men and women in the UK are leaving it late to start a family and having fewer children than they want, for the first time our results provide insight into how much reproductive time is lost due to the barriers to having children.
Key findings from the study include:
- University-educated women only start seeing the timing of when they have children as an important decision at age 33. Before this, it seems they do not consider it a pressing issue. This contrasts with all other groups for whom baby timing is a significant factor from the youngest ages (21 for university-educated men and 18 for non-university-educated men and women). This suggests that university-educated women already face limited time to have children, as they do not consider themselves to be delaying parenthood until age 33.
- University-educated women place the highest value on having a supportive partner who is prepared to be a hands-on parent and share household and childcare responsibilities. They are prepared to give up seven years of reproductive time to have a supportive partner, compared to five years for financial stability, the next most important attribute for them.
- Non-university-educated women prioritise stable relationships and are prepared to wait as long as ten years for a stable relationship before having a/another child. Household finances are also important to this group with women giving up around seven years of reproductive time for financial security.
- For university-educated men, their partner’s readiness to have children is the most important factor and they would give up around seven years to have a supportive partner who is ready to have a baby. This compares with only one year to own a home.
- Non-university-educated men prioritise living in a child-friendly neighbourhood over other factors and are prepared to wait around seven years to have this attribute.
The results suggest that when it comes to narrowing or eliminating the fertility gap, no one-size policy will be effective; different people have different needs. That said, support networks are an important factor for everyone, whether that’s from partners, family, or friends.
The State could start to offset the barriers to reproduction by making the workplace more compatible with childcare. Imagine a world where companies of all kinds had built-in child-care facilities that come at no cost to parents who could bring their children to work and have access to them throughout the day.
Dr Paula Sheppard
The State can offset the barriers to reproduction by promoting a supportive parenting environment. If there was substantial public money available to spend, then a good place to start would be to make the workplace more compatible with childcare. Imagine a world where companies of all kinds had built-in childcare facilities that come at no cost to parents who could bring their children to work and have access to them throughout the day. There are quite a few places that do this already, but the cost is borne by the parents, not the state. This way, the penalty of parenthood would be hugely reduced and, while it may not bring overall fertility rates up, it can give people the family size they want and reduce the fertility gap.
That said, the way forward is far from clear. For instance, Nordic countries typically have better state welfare provision overall including childcare and parental leave, but they also have low fertility. The country in Europe with the highest birth rate is France, and this does appear to be related to family-oriented policies.
In any case, it is difficult to say conclusively that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between national policies and birth rates. As my work shows, the same policy won’t help everyone; different groups in society have different needs.
The study ‘Using discrete choice modeling to understand the drivers of reproductive delay in the United Kingdom’ has been published in the International Journal of Population Studies. The research was funded by the John Fell Fund.
You can listen to Dr Paula Sheppard discuss the drivers and consequences of the UK’s falling birth rate in this Oxford Sparks Big Questions podcast.
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