Why do you think women worldwide are having fewer babies?

[KateMumsnet]

Hello all

We've been approached by an academic researcher at the Oxford Centre for Research into Parenting and Children who's working on a book called 'No Time For Children'. The book will explore why fertility rates - the number of babies being born per mother - are actually falling the world over, despite a widespread belief to the contrary. 

In China, for example, the worried government is reversing its one-child policy - but many adult 'onelies' now believe that one child is 'about right'. The same is true in Japan and Singapore, and fertility rates are also falling in Africa,  Europe, Latin America and all over Eastern Asia. 

The book will contain chapters written by an impressive roster of academic contributors, but its authors would also like to hear what mothers themselves think is going on, and what, specifically, they consider to be the barriers to having more children. If you'd like to contribute, please do post your thoughts here. 

[Cattleprod]

Also men having more respect for women and not seeing them as housekeeper/baby machine.

[msbuggywinkle]

In this country, it is a combination of - more choices available to women, often families needing two salaries and contraception.

I imagine it is similar in other 'developed' countries.

Probably more to do with contraception and money in developing countries and less to do with choice.

[stripeywoollenhat]

a lot of it, i imagine, relates to the expectations we have about the lifestyles we can provide for our children, as well as our expectations for ourselves. if you are hoping to help your children through education to third level, if you want them to have a wide range of enjoyable experiences through their childhood, without wholly sacrificing your own interests in favour of theirs, then you are automatically deciding to limit their number (unless you are extremely rich).

[Macaroona]

Interesting that the majority of posters see it as a positive.

I mean it is obviously positive in the sense that women don't have to have lots of children, that they aren't expected to, that they have other choices in life.

But I would love a massive family, and couldn't possibly afford it and also DH wasn't ready until now (I'm 31). I'm bright enough to have carved out a decent career (which DH and everyone I know expects me to leap back into asap) but not bright enough to have planned how to achieve the dream of having a big family - that would have involved purposefully choosing a rich man early in my twenties, who wanted loads of kids with me. Or a life on benefits with someone who wanted a big family but didn't earn enough to support them. I think it's more difficult for middle-class educated women to make the choice to have big families in the current political and economic climate.

Can I afford a career? Yes. Will people judge me positively for it? Yes.

Can I afford a big family? No. Will people judge me positively for it? No.

[EssentialFattyAcid]

Economic factors in this country mean that large families are usually polarised at the extremes of the income spectrum. So if you have lots of kids you are likely to be either very rich or very poor.

[EggyAllenPoe]

because there is a choice -

though i think the fact that very wealthy women in the UK often choose to have large families shows the flip side - given the choice, many will choose to have more children if they can afford it.

personally, i have had enough of pregnancy and small babies - its no fun.

[Mandyville]

I'd be fascinated to see how this plays in publication. For crying out loud demographers (who study population, fertility, mortality, migration etc) don't agree on what exactly drives the 'demographic transition' (from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates). I'm not sure that asking a non-random selection of (mostly British) mothers can add anything here.

[missorinoco]

For me, because I started later in life, either I have them very close in age, or I have less children.

Also the cost, even as a professional earning a good salary childcare eats up the equivalent of one income.

Contraception is so effective it gives us the choice.

[Coolsticks]

I'm from an African country and can confidently say infant mortality is not the reason birth rates used to be high. In rural areas a few generations ago you needed to have plenty of kids to help you till the land, hunt, etc. Increased urbanisation equals less space, no farms so more children are just more mouths to feed. Also education is more expensive and no social welfare so pple are having less just like countries in the North!

[TheFlyingOnion]

Men-children who think that at 35 they should be going snowboarding 6 months of the year and are "too young" for kids

Seriously, why is this always phrased as the women's problem/fault?

[suzikettles]

It is interesting. If you read accounts of poorer women with large families from 100 odd years ago the overwhelming impression is how relentless it all was.

The upper classes often had larger families but they had paid help.

I think (but I might be totally wrong), that one of the things that came with the emerging middle class (who might be able to afford one servant) was smaller families. Isn't this just a continuation in a way?

It looks like we will have one child fewer than we would wish (one rather than two). I think the idea of the "ideal" family size is largely based on dh & my family growing up (what you're used to). It's interesting that according to the op, the normalisation of "only children" may be making people choose this option, whereas in this country there is still a stigma.

[caramelwaffle]

Education.
Choice.
Money.

[HarrietJones]

Something I often see on here is that children need a room each. Therefore people feel they need a bigger house after 1/2 children and can't afford the 4 bed house. Someone said above about cars too.

[FrancesFarmer]

It's bloody hard work. Few jobs are as relentless as being a full time SAHM and no one gives you the praise and credit given to people who do other difficult jobs. It's seen as natural that a mother manages with small children when in reality it's a constant struggle.

I've had my two DCs whilst doing my PhD and trying to get my academic career started and it's been very tough. Sometimes I think I'd like one more child but I'm not sure I could go through the toil of having a small baby again and the interruption to my studies and research. I'm only in my early thirties and I hope to get a lecturing job within the next five years and with that, the possibility of a proper maternity leave should I have a third child but it will be a tough decision.

[drcrab]

Lack of support, be it financial, practical or any other kind. Before people started to live away from family members there was at least the 'village' to help raise the child. My parents both worked and my brother and I were left with grandmother and other relatives in the day. Till today nearly 40 years on we are v close to my aunts and uncles and cousins even though I live 7000 miles away. That was in Singapore.

Now that I live in the uk, I have 2dcs and have to work full time so that we can survive. This is a so called professional couple family with many postgraduate degrees between them. I imagine if we were living in Singapore, we'd be more than fine financially (based on equivalent jobs) but will have a worse work life balance... But will have paid domestic help. Much of a muchness. Do I work like mad here but kinda get to go off on time to pick kids up from nursery which costs an average person's income, rush home to get dinner on for starving kids who've not seen me the whole day, bath then bedtime.? Or do I go to Singapore where I have the money to pay for domestic help to clean, cook and watch the kids but not the time to play with said children because I'm expected to work till late, travel for my work, and devote my life to work?

[SouthGoingZax]

DH and I waited until we were 'set up' (house, good jobs, financially secure) before we tried for kids. I was only 28 when we started but it was still a bit late for me. After 6 years of fertility treatments we finally had twins - I would have liked 4 DCs but now I am 37 and DH is 42 we feel it is a bit late.
Also, as FrancesFarmer said above - it is bloody hard work. I think maybe we put more into it these days than we used to - I know my mum, for e.g. wasn't obsessed with parenting books etc in the way my generation are.

[NightLark]

Career, money / lifestyle choices (needing two salaries to meet the mortgage) are up there, but for me it is mainly about dispersed family meaning there is no help and support available. Two or three children are very hard work if you are managing without a network of mum, gran, auntie, cousins etc, just you, DP and whatever childcare you can afford to buy (and cope with the guilt of using)...

[SpareRoomSleeper]

Some excellent points made. Agree mainly with women's role changing from that of housewife and mother to having presence in the workforce as the core factor. Also I would like to add -and have experienced on a personal level and seen with own and DH's siblings - that as todays parents we all want more for our children than we had as kids, in every sense, whether its material terms, education-wise and general quality of life. Perhaps more is expected of us as parents now, there is more pressure to create that ideal life for your children? I'm not sure entirely, but whenever my mum sees what we do for our dc's she always comments (a little sadly) 'we just got by with the basics, and that's just the way it was then'.

[Giddly]

In some countries it's related to a reduction in son preference. Women used to keep going until they had at least one son. Now, in some countries this is not such a big issue as it was. In some countries it still is - and you find the fertility rate is not dropping so fast - or alternatively, like in parts of India you get sex-selective abortion and skewing of the sex ratios

[Giddly]

Post-partum infanticide is actually very rare except in a few small pockets

[thefirstMrsDeVere]

I understand that in countries such as Italy and Spain the birth rate has plummeted as women have had more access to birth control. I suspect that the grip of the Catholic church is loosening in certain parts of the world and women are now able to control their own fertility instead of some old bloke in Rome.