Abstract
The decline in fertility rates below replacement level is a phenomenon that has taken on global dimensions in the early twenty-first century. For example, according to the Population Reference Bureau’s 2013 World Population Data Sheet, 82 nations are reported to have a total fertility rate (TFR) below the replacement level of 2.1; TFR estimates for these nations range from 1.2 to 2.0. Included in this list are all of the nations in Europe (including Scandinavia); both Canada and the United States; every nation in East Asia except Mongolia; ten of seventeen nations in the Caribbean; and various other nations scattered across Central and South America and across South, Southeast, and Western Asia.
The trend has many and diverse implications, and it has inspired at least some analysts to refer to it as the “second demographic transition.” Whether or not the spreading trend toward ever lower levels of fertility is deserving of such new nomenclature, the facts themselves pose a serious challenge, both for social scientists who strive to explain their causes and consequences and for policy analysts concerned about, among other things, the economic and political consequences of aging populations, the impact on labor force participation rates, the tensions arising from immigration and associated shifts in ethnic composition, and still other potential consequences associated with the secular trend toward lower fertility rates.
In view of such considerations, the Social Trends Institute in Barcelona, Spain, sponsored an Experts Meeting in 2010 on the theme, “Whither the Child? Causes, Consequences, and Responses to Low Fertility.” Papers presented at this meeting have now been assembled into a volume with a similar title edited by Eric Kaufmann and W. Bradford Wilcox.
The ten chapters comprising the volume cover a wide range of issues relevant to the trend toward below replacement levels of fertility. In order of appearance, the chapters address the following topics: the relative influence of economic and cultural factors contributing to lower fertility; the extent to which childlessness may discourage active adult involvement in civic life; the manner in which parenthood affects reported happiness among adults; the ethical and legal issues associated with various assisted reproductive technologies; the impact on Chinese children, especially those in the 6–18 age group, born since the institution of the nation’s “one-child policy”; the household division of labor and perceived marital happiness within the context of low-fertility regimes; the tension between secularization and piety in low-fertility nations and its implication for religiosity in the foreseeable future; the converging alignment between feminism and pro-natalist policy initiatives in Western nations; the divergent lifestyle preferences of women in Western nations and the implication for competing policies regarding support for childcare; and, lastly, the complexity of factors contributing to and the difficulties associated with efforts to assess “optimal” fertility levels for societies in the early twenty-first century.
As indicated by the preceding list of chapter topics, the contributions to this edited volume address a wide variety of issues that touch upon aspects of the trend toward below replacement levels of fertility. For the most part, each chapter is well-organized around its designated theme. Still, as is so frequently the case with edited volumes, there is some unevenness of quality from chapter to chapter. Of greater significance, at least for the task at hand, is that this reviewer finds little in the way of “connective tissue” that pulls these chapters into a coherent, unified intellectual product.
Indeed, the editors themselves note in their introductory remarks that their “authors offer no unitary explanations” (p. xii) for the variety of issues addressed; and, it may be noted, contributors occasionally voice divergent interpretations of some basic facts (e.g., the extent to which the Swedish case stands as an exemplar of effective family-friendly social policy). To some degree, such diverse viewpoints are to be expected in an edited volume that assembles papers on related topics by scholars with distinctive interests and intellectual preferences. But it does pose a difficulty for a reviewer. As noted above, each chapter addresses an important issue that will appeal to the specialized interests of at least some number of social scientists. So, although there may be little in the way of common threads stitching the chapters together, as stand-alone products each one has its own merits and is worthy of its own unique review. Space constraints, understandably, preclude anything like a detailed assessment.
Nevertheless, it bears stressing that certain themes, addressed in distinctive ways, do crop up in at least two or more chapters. For example, more than one of the contributions in some way addresses the following issues: the conflict between commitment to career and commitment to family faced by so many women, especially in more developed nations; the lingering difficulties associated with a sex-differentiated household division of labor; the sex-differentiated desire for and meaning of children; and the influence of culture factors (in particular, religion) pertinent to the expression of what might be called “traditional” versus “nontraditional” norms regarding fertility behavior.
One feature of this edited volume was cause for some mild annoyance. (I have no desire to sound like the old curmudgeon who constantly harps at little children to get off his lawn, despite the risk that some may perceive me as such.) Every chapter refers to figures and/or tables that are available only by means of accessing the book’s special website. Of course, this feature of the book has nothing to do with the quality of the specific contributions, nor does it necessarily reflect poorly on the skills of the editors. Publishing houses these days are keenly cost-conscious, and figures and tables are more expensive to print in contrast to text. Nevertheless, if aspects of reported analyses are important enough to cite in the text, the figures and tables that provide the supporting documentation should be readily available to readers without requiring them to set the book aside to access some relevant website.
That aside, I applaud the editors for bringing together these contributions on what is most certainly a very important topic. As noted at the outset of this review, the trend toward below replacement levels of fertility addressed in some fashion by each of the chapters in this volume is on display with what appears to be increasing vigor with each passing year (indeed, the data cited in my opening paragraph are understandably even more recent than are those reported in the book under review and suggest that this topic will remain relevant for years to come). The trend raises any number of issues regarding its sources and consequences that are likely to puzzle demographers, other social scientists, and policy analysts for decades to come. For those interested in such matters, the content of Whither the Child? represents a provocative and useful starting-point for further inquiry.