Is there is a correlation between the economic conditions of your country and fertility rate?
Posted by aceraspire8920@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 12 comments
Dull_Cucumber_3908@reddit
It's not about economic conditions. It's about living standards. The higher the standard, the lower the fertility rate.
As an example the poorest person in Greece today has better living standards compared to the king of Greece 100 years ago. There's no way today for someone today to get bitten by an animal (ie a monkey) and die because of infection, like it happened to king of Greece 106 years ago who was just 27 years old when he died of an infection.
Opening-Lobster-6027@reddit
It is not directly related to GDP, but it is related to rise in social security.
In the past, having more children meant extra working hands. And children were your "pension fund" and insurance. Having more children meant having someone to take care of you when you are old or unable to work.
Now, we don't "need" children. We have children when/if we want them. And how many we want. And that usually means two, at most three.
Contrary to popular belief, the drop in fertility rate is not connected to the fact that less people have children. Percentage of childless people is not much different than 100 years ago. The drop in fertility rate is connected to the fact that there are almost no more large families (4+ children). And that won't improve with better access to housing, free kindergarten, etc. Because most people simply won't have 4 children. Because they don't need to.
Excellent_Jeweler_43@reddit
Fertility rate is directly correlated to urbanisation. Check any single statistic that with the rise of urbanisation the fertility drops, in every single country. That’s the main reason why many countries in the Balkans dropped from fertility of 5-6 kids on average to around 2 with the rise of communism and urbanisation.
DeInking@reddit
GDP per capita is only loosely related to quality of life people are experiencing. Having children went from being a necessity in agrarian societies to a financial disadvantage in modern societies. So naturally, when people get to choose, they choose to have fewer children.
Some_General_3740@reddit
Kudos to humanity for creating a society where reproduction is a disadvantage.
DeInking@reddit
It’s ridiculous. I agree. And now politicians keep on coming up with all kinds of ridiculous ideas to increase the birthrates but always fail because they fail to understand the reasons why people are not having children.
They are needed to keep the economy running and pay taxes aka society needs them but they are treated as a luxury project their parents decided to have.
lilian_moraru@reddit
GDP per capita shows more how well your country can attract big corporations and rich people, less to do with the overall population wellbeing.
GDP(PPP) reflects more "how much economical pressure regular people feel" - this has direct effect on family decisions. But there is no one single "statistic" to look at, that affects "fertility rate" - that should probably include "corruption index + amount of social support + personal security index + etc, etc, etc".
Live-Method-219@reddit
Fertility isn't correlated that much with economic factors but with beliefs that future will be better than today
RedBlueSquirtle@reddit
Yes and it should be, I know it would be a shallow comment but my country has a saying where it can be roughly translated as:
"Rich would play with his money, poor would play with his wife"
rubenknol@reddit
there's more of a correlation between fertility rate and education rate - lowly educated people typically reproduce more
crivycouriac@reddit
Nope
Slovenia’s fertility rate, against all odds, went below replacement later than Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia
aceraspire8920@reddit (OP)
Sources:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=GR
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=GR