Canada’s fertility rate has been below replacement level (about 2.1 children per woman) for more than 50 years, but the recent decline is different. From the onset of the financial crisis of 2008 till 2024, the total fertility rate (TFR) fell from 1.70 to 1.25 (Statistics Canada 2025). Canada was not alone in experiencing such a fall. A similar decrease occurred in the Nordic countries, which were known until recently for their comparatively high fertility among developed countries (Hellstrand et al. 2021). It happened in France too, but with a small lag: there, the TFR decreased from 2.03 in 2010 to 1.68 in 2023. Public debate often assumes that young adults still want the same number of children as earlier generations but are unable to realise their plans because of housing costs, economic insecurity, difficulties balancing work and family, or the lack of affordable childcare. These factors certainly matter. However, recent research suggests that people actually want fewer children than before.

A new phase in Canada’s fertility decline

In demography, the number of children people want is typically measured through fertility intentions. Even if they do not always translate into actual births, fertility intentions remain among the strongest predictors of subsequent childbearing.

In France, the recent decline in fertility has accompanied falling fertility intentions, suggesting that completed fertility will be lower among the cohorts born after 1985 (Bouchet-Valat and Toulemon 2025). In both Europe and the United States, intended family size has declined and now often falls below replacement level, particularly among younger adults (Testa 2012; Beaujouan and Berghammer 2019; Friedrich and Bujard 2025; Hays 2025).

In a recent paper, we examined fertility intentions among Canadian women using seven national surveys conducted between 1990 and 2021 (Laplante and Blouin 2026). Our results show a clear decline over the last three decades, with a particularly marked decrease after 2011 and again after 2017. Today, the average number of children women intend to have over their lifetime is below replacement level (Figure 1). 

Figure 1 Lifetime fertility intentions according to year of birth among women aged 15–49 by survey, predicted from a regression in which the effect of age is modelled using a cubic spline.

Source: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey 1990–2017 and Canadian Social Survey 2021.
Note: Read from left to right, each curve represents the variation in lifetime fertility intentions according to age among women aged 15–49 in a given survey. The solid portion of each curve represents women aged 20–34.

The rise of intended childlessness

The most striking finding concerns young women, most of whom, in the early surveys, expected to become mothers. By contrast, in the most recent surveys, close to half of women at the beginning of their reproductive lives reported intentions that imply remaining childless. This does not mean that none of them will ultimately have children, as intentions evolve over the life course. Yet the change is large enough to suggest a profound transformation in the place of parenthood within contemporary adulthood. 

Our analysis also shows that fertility intentions follow a life-course pattern. Younger women often revise their intentions as they move through adulthood, form partnerships, complete their education, and have children. More educated women tend to postpone childbearing and therefore express their intentions on a different timetable than less educated women. Nonetheless, across educational groups, the overall trend points in the same direction: intentions are lower than they were a generation ago. 

The decline in intentions appears to result from two related developments. First, childless women increasingly report lower intended family sizes. Second, childlessness itself has become more common at all ages, which further reduces average intentions in the population. Together, these two changes help explain why fertility intentions have fallen so substantially. 

A puzzle for family policy

These findings raise an important challenge for policymakers. Most discussions of family policy assume that people want children but face barriers that prevent them from achieving their goals. Under this view, governments should reduce those barriers by providing parental leave, affordable childcare, financial support, or more family-friendly workplaces. Such measures remain valuable: they help parents and improve children’s well-being; they may also allow some people to have the children they already want.

But our findings suggest that another process is at work. If intentions themselves are declining, then policies designed solely to help people realise existing family plans may have only limited effects on fertility levels. Put differently, it is much easier to help people achieve a goal than to encourage them to adopt that goal in the first place. 

This creates a dilemma that is increasingly visible across high-income countries. Generous family policies can reduce the cost of having children, but they may prove less effective to support fertility when parenthood no longer occupies the same central place in people’s aspirations and life projects.

The Canadian case therefore raises questions that extend well beyond fertility statistics. Why are fewer young adults envisioning parenthood as part of their future? How have changing values, lifestyles, educational trajectories, economic opportunities, and family norms contributed to this shift? And if societies become increasingly concerned about population decline, what kinds of policy responses remain legitimate and effective in a context where reproductive choices are understood as fundamentally voluntary?

These are difficult questions, and our research does not provide all the answers. What it does suggest is that the recent decline in fertility cannot be understood solely as a story of unmet demand for children. It is also a story about changing intentions.

Understanding why that is happening may be one of the most important demographic challenges facing Canada, and possibly also other countries, in the years ahead.

References

Beaujouan, É and Berghammer, C. (2019). The gap between lifetime fertility intentions and completed fertility in Europe and the United States: A cohort approach. Population research and policy review 38(4): 507–535. doi: 10.1007/s11113-019-09516-3

Friedrich, C and Bujard, M. (2025). Intended, ideal, and actual fertility in 11 European countries. Evidence on fertility gaps in different age groups from the Generations and Gender Survey. Wiesbaden: Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB.Working Paper 2/2025).

Hays, J. (2025). U.S. adults in their 20s and 30s plan to have fewer children than in the past. Pew Research Center. https://pewrsr.ch/43Oycpv (retrieved on 10 August 2025).

Hellstrand, J., Nisén, J., Miranda, V., Fallesen, P., Dommermuth, L., and Myrskylä; M. (2021). Not just later, but fewer: Novel trends in cohort fertility in the Nordic countries. Demography 58(4): 1373–1399. doi: 10.1215/00703370-9373618.

Laplante, B. and Blouin, J. (2026). “The recent decline in women’s fertility intentions in Canada: The shift in the intention schedule and the puzzle for family policy.” Demographic Research 55(12): 371–412.

Statistics Canada (2023). Crude birth rate, age-specific fertility rates and total fertility rate (live births), Table: 13-10-0418-01, Release date: 2025-09-24.

Testa, M. R. (2012). Family sizes in Europe. Evidence from the 2011 Eurobarometer survey. Vienna: Vienna Institute of Demography (European Demographic Research Paper n° 2).

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It is a common observation that developed nations have sub-replacement fertility, meaning that the total fertility rate (TFR) – the total number of children a woman is expected to have – is below 2.1. Both scientific and public discourse often highlight this as a potential long-term issue for nations. Extreme political voices, particularly in low fertility contexts such as Europe, even frame it as a threat to national survival (Goetz et al. 2022).

While most developed nations experience low TFR, Israel is an outlier, as it has a very high TFR and overall low levels of childlessness. Previous studies note that this may be due to the unique combination of traditionalism, family-centred values, and nationalist sentiment originating from the presence of constant threat (Anson and Meir 1996). This suggests a possible association between national identity and fertility.

National identity and fertility

But what exactly is the concept of national identity? Social psychology points to two important components: an awareness of belonging to the nation, and the emotional importance attached to this belonging (Tajfel 1981). A stronger national identity makes the nation more important in people’s lives, making them more likely to follow its norms, pay attention to its needs, and prioritize its survival. The latter is especially important, as threats to the nation – whether perceived or real – bring national identity to the forefront and modify individual behaviour (Stephan et al. 2009).

At individual level, a strong feeling of national identity may stimulate fertility, because children may be seen as a personal contribution to the continuation of the nation, especially when there is the general perception that children are needed. Besides, childbearing is a long-term commitment and individuals with a stronger national identity may place greater trust in the prospects of the nation, increasing their sense of control over the future and making them more likely to invest in it.

Results

In a recent study (Erát, 2026), using data from childless 15–29-year-olds from the Hungarian Youth 2020 survey (6,312 respondents in total), I created a measure of national identity based on responses to eight questions such as “I feel that I am Hungarian” or “I am proud to be Hungarian”, where respondents rated their answers on a 1 to 5 scale (5 = total agreement). After controlling for common socioeconomic characteristics (age, gender, education, parental education, financial situation, living arrangement, partnership status, region, residence type, ethnicity) and attitude-related factors (religiosity, political position), I estimated the probability of specific childbearing intentions (Figure 2).

Compared to individuals with average national identity strength, those with a much weaker attachment to the nation were more likely to want no children. While intentions to have one child were not substantially affected, intentions to have a relatively large family (two or more children) were also associated with national identity. However, stronger national identity was also associated with a higher likelihood of non-response or uncertain answers.

How can we interpret these results? First, the broader context must be considered. While Hungary has long been a family-centric country, the political and social climate changed after 2010. During its self-described “demographic governance”, the government introduced selective childbearing support targeting middle- and upper-class families, promoted rhetoric that framed “others” (migrants and minorities) as threats to the nation, and began an “anti-gender” campaign aimed at returning to more traditional gender roles, particularly emphasizing childbearing as a woman’s duty (Waterbury 2020; Barát 2022; Melegh, 2016). While this did not achieve above-replacement fertility, it created an environment in which national threats, childbearing and traditional expectations were constantly overemphasized. This may have particularly affected the attitudes and intentions of the studied 15-29 age group. 

Considering this context, the results point towards a relatively clear association between national identity and fertility intentions, particularly in the case of childlessness and intentions to have two or more children. A stronger attachment to the nation increases the probability of responding to the nation’s needs and conforming to its expectations, which in the Hungarian case means having more children. But what about the non-response or uncertain answers, which became visibly more likely with stronger national identity? While no definitive explanation can be provided, perhaps these individuals feel a strong attachment to the nation without intending to have children, or at least not as many as the nation “prescribes”. Refraining from answering the question or expressing uncertainty may be a way to avoid directly stating something that goes against the expressed needs of the nation.

References

Barát, E. (2022). “Paradoxes of the Right-Wing Sexual/Gender Politics in Hungary: Right-Wing Populism and the Ban of Gender Studies.” In Paradoxical Right-Wing Sexual Politics in Europe, edited by Cornelia Möser, Jennifer Ramme, and Judit Takács, 173–99. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Erát, D. (2026). “National Identity and Fertility Intentions: Evidence from Hungary.” Population and Development Review, 52: 135–166. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.70051

Goetz, J., Oláh, L., and Pető, A. (2022). Discourses On Demography in the EU Institutions. Berlin: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Gunda-Werner-Institut. Online: https://eu.boell.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/Demography_EU_institutions_FIN_web.pdf

Melegh, A. (2016). On the East-West Slope: Globalization, Nationalism, Racism and Discourses on Eastern Europe. Budapest: Central European University Press.

Stephan, W. G., Ybarra, O., and Morrison, K. R. (2009). “Intergroup Threat Theory.” In Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination, edited by Todd D. Nelson, 43–59. New York: Routledge.

Tajfel, H. (1981). Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Waterbury, M. A. (2020). “Populist Nationalism and the Challenges of Divided Nationhood: The Politics of Migration, Mobility, and Demography in post-2010 Hungary.” East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, 34(4), 962–983. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325419897772

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In many parts of the globe, having a child as an unmarried woman comes with a host of social and economic challenges, and can affect the timing and the quality of a woman’s eventual marriage (Smith-Greenaway and Clark 2018; Smith-Greenaway, Koski, and Clark 2021). Despite focusing on high-mortality contexts, like contemporary Africa, research on this question often makes a rather heroic assumption: that the out-of-wedlock child survives. In reality, however, child mortality remains high in Africa (Smith-Greenaway et al. 2021), and children born outside marriage are especially vulnerable to premature death (Clark and Hamplová 2013). 

What happens when an unwed mother’s child dies?  

This raises the question of whether a child’s survival alters unmarried mothers’ lives, including their eventual entry into marriage. How does the death of a premaritally born child affect the mother’s future marital outcomes? Does the child’s death deepen any observed disadvantage or can it “remove” the stigmatizing status of single motherhood, and improve her chances of marrying? Alternatively, given the high frequency of child fostering in Africa (Cotton 2021), are unwed mothers’ life trajectories unaffected by the loss of a child? 

In a recent paper, we tested these competing hypotheses by examining unmarried mothers’ subsequent marital trajectories after a first birth as a function of their child’s survival (Lin et al. 2025). We used the most recent round of Demographic and Health Surveys, collected between 2011 and 2023, spanning 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. On average, 17% of women of reproductive age (15–49) across these countries experienced a premarital birth, yielding a study sample of 69,800 women. Among them, 3% experienced the death of their firstborn during infancy, allowing us to assess how marital timing and union quality differ between women whose premaritally born child died and those whose child survived. 

Premarital child loss and mothers’ marital outcomes 

Unwed mothers whose first child died during infancy marry sooner relative to their unmarried counterparts whose first child survived (Figure 1). This pattern persists after controlling for mothers’ socioeconomic characteristics, including education. However, these analyses offer no qualitative distinctions as to the nature of these women’s marital unions , a topic that has been largely overlooked in the literature. 

Closer scrutiny reveals that following their child’s death, women tend to marry partners with 0.3 fewer years of schooling, are 16% more likely to enter polygynous unions, and 26% more likely to experience domestic violence. 

As child mortality declines, do these patterns change? 

While the broader question concerns women’s marital trajectories following child loss, a natural follow-up is whether these patterns persist as deaths, including child deaths, become rarer over time. 

In our main analyses, we focused on all reproductive-age women in the Demographic and Health Surveys. These include women born in different cohorts who have navigated romantic relationships, childbearing, and marriage under distinct circumstances. As such, we analyzed whether our findings varied across birth cohorts—including women born in the 1970s (or earlier), 1980s, or 1990s (or later).  

We found that inequalities in both marital timing and quality between unmarried mothers by children’s vital status are largest for the youngest cohort in our data, the cohort with the lowest rates of child mortality. Specifically, experiencing an infant death is associated with substantially faster entry into marriage among women born in or after the 1990s, compared to those born in or before the 1980s (Figure 2). Moreover, the spousal educational gap between mothers whose child died versus survived is considerably larger among women born in the 1980s and 1990s than among those born in or before the 1970s.

This suggests that the death of a firstborn child before marriage has become more consequential for women’s subsequent marriage outcomes, with respect to both marriage timing and quality, despite secular decreases in child mortality.

Final remarks 

Our work demonstrates that a child’s death is not only an outcome of inequality but may also be a future source of disadvantage. Future research should examine more closely how child loss reshapes women’s life trajectories and highlights the unique double burden of unwed mothers who may not only bear a child outside marriage but also, in some cases, lose that child. Although child mortality has been declining in Africa, our findings suggest that it is becoming a more consequential event for women, attesting to the need to further understand the impact of child loss on women’s lives and wellbeing. 

References 

Clark, Shelley, and Dana Hamplová. 2013. “Single Motherhood and Child Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Life Course Perspective.” Demography 50 (5): 1521–1549. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-013-0220-6. 

Cotton, Cassandra. 2021. “An Enduring Institution? Child Fostering in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Population and Development Review 47 (4): 1179–1206. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12439. 

Lin, Yingyi, Emily Smith-Greenaway, Camila Cortes Rodriguez, and Shelley Clark. 2025. “From Birth to Death: The Marital Consequences of Child Loss for Unmarried Mothers.” Studies in Family Planning. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/sifp.70041 

Smith-Greenaway, Emily, Diego Alburez-Gutierrez, Jenny Trinitapoli, and Emilio Zagheni. 2021. “Global Burden of Maternal Bereavement: Indicators of the Cumulative Prevalence of Child Loss.” BMJ Global Health 6: e004837. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-004837. 

Smith-Greenaway, Emily, and Shelley Clark. 2018. “Women’s Marriage Behavior following a Premarital Birth in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 80(1): 256–270. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12433.

Smith-Greenaway, Emily, Alissa Koski, and Shelley Clark. 2021. “Women’s Marital Experiences Following Premarital Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Journal of Marriage and Family 83 (2): 394–408. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12704.

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Why it is plausible that health affects fertility

Mental or physical health problems are related to fertility intentions, childlessness and birth rates (e.g., Lazzari and Beaujouan 2025; Liu et al. 2024; Kravdal, Flatø and Torvik 2025). While, to some extent, such relationships are a result of joint determinants of health and fertility that have not been adequately controlled for, they may also reflect effects of health on fertility through a variety of causal pathways. For example, some chronic and severe health problems may adversely affect education and income, with implications for partnership formation and dissolution, and for a couple’s interest in having children.

Women and men with serious health issues may fear that having a child, or an additional child, would not be a joyful experience, that they would not be good enough parents, or that the strains of parenthood could make their condition worse. Additionally, there may be effects on fecundity and even on the effective use of contraception.

Even for individuals in good mental and physical health, childbearing can be a daunting experience. Some women experience particularly challenging pregnancies with, for example, severe nausea, health risks due to eclampsia, particularly difficult deliveries, or adverse mental or physical postnatal implications even after a relatively normal pregnancy and delivery. The latter include, for example, postnatal depression, pelvic pain, and perineal tears. These women and their partners may be less interested than others in having an additional child: even short-lived mental and physical health problems may be perceived as heavy burdens, and women may not want to take the risk of assuming them a second time. Some may not be physically able to have more children either.

Similarly, while it is often exhausting to care for very young children, some infants are more challenging for parents than others, for example because of their sleep patterns or colic. These issues may persist for several months, or even years, sometimes leading to health problems for the parents themselves. In such situations, some parents may not be very eager to have an additional child, who may affect them in the same way. 

New empirical evidence

Two studies based on nationwide Norwegian register data (Grundy and Kravdal 2025) and on the large Mother, Father and Child survey with added register data (Kravdal, Grundy and Hart 2026) provide evidence for these hypotheses. The latter investigation was based on information about health status around the time of the first birth for about 37,000 women, and around the time of the second birth for about 29,000. It was shown, for example, that mothers who experienced nausea in their first pregnancy were less likely than others to ever have a second child, and they also waited longer if they had one (see Table 1). Women who had pre-eclampsia or (more rarely) eclampsia in their second pregnancy had a reduced probability of progressing to a third birth, as did those who were on sick leave after week 30 of the second pregnancy. 

Furthermore, second- and third-birth probabilities were substantially reduced among women whose previous birth was difficult, as indicated by an emergency caesarean section, and more markedly so among those who had a planned caesarean section (but not when performed for a breech presentation). This situation may signal problems in pregnancy or underlying health problems not captured by other covariates. (The link between delivery mode and second births was investigated thoroughly in Grundy and Kravdal 2025.) Additionally, the probability of having a second child was low among women who had postnatal depression after the first birth or whose first child had colic or slept poorly. Sleep problems were also related to a reduced third-birth probability.  

Certain chronic somatic or mental health problems experienced by the mother or father before the most recent previous pregnancy were also associated with the probability of having additional children (not shown in the table).  

The value of this research

How useful is such knowledge about associations between health and fertility, which may partly reflect causal effects? In principle, it may help us predict the fertility implications of certain types of health deterioration or improvement. Having a more reasonable picture of future fertility levels may in turn be valuable from a planning perspective and for political discussions. Current evidence suggests that the apparent rise in mental disorders among young Norwegians in recent years – and the possible continuation of this trend – has had and will have a modest impact on the national fertility level (Kravdal, Flatø and Torvik 2025). However, it is also useful to be aware of a lack of aggregate-level implications, and there may be other implications relating to other settings and other types of health changes. 

Clearly, when steps are taken to improve the prevention or treatment of various diseases, or increase the quality of patient care, better health and well-being is a goal in itself. However, the evidence referred to above indicates that there may be spin-offs in the form of higher fertility. This means that, if there is concern about low fertility (Kravdal 2025), attempts to prevent or cure diseases, or to make life easier for individuals with chronic or temporary health problems – including during pregnancy and for some time after birth – may serve a dual purpose. This is in line with the conclusions of a recent White Paper to the Norwegian government about the causes and consequences of low fertility (NOU 2026). 

References

Grundy, Emily, and Øystein Kravdal. 2025. “Mode of delivery of the first child and progression to a second birth in Norway.” Population-E 80 (3-4), 381-404. https://shs.cairn.info/journal-population-2021-0-page-381?lang=en

Kravdal, Øystein. 2025. “Should we be concerned about low fertility? A discussion of six possible arguments.”  Demographic Research 53(14), 373-418. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2025.53.14

Kravdal, Øystein, Martin Flatø, and Fartein A. Torvik. 2025. “Fertility among Norwegian women and men with mental disorders.” European Journal of Population 41 (1): 17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-025-09739-5

Kravdal, Øystein, Emily Grundy, and Rannveig K. Hart. 2026. “Health influences in second- and third-birth probabilities in Norway”. Population and Development Review. http://doi.org/10.1111/padr.70066

Lazzari, Ester, and Éva Beaujouan. 2025. “Self-assessed physical and mental health and fertility expectations of men and women across the life course.” Demography 62 (2): 543-569.https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-11873109

Liu, Aoxing, Evelina T. Akimova, Xuejie Ding, Sakari Jukarainen, Pekka Vartiainen, Tuomo Kiiskinen, et al. 2024. “Evidence from Finland and Sweden on the relationship between early-life diseases and lifetime childlessness in men and women.” Nature Human Behaviour 8 (2): 276-287. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01763-x

NOU 2026. “Policy for new generations – Causes, consequences and measures related to low birth rates. English summary”. NOU 2026:2. Oslo: Ministry of Families and Children.

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Across most of the world, women today are having fewer children than their mothers or grandmothers did. This much is well known. Less examined is how the timing of those births has shifted: not just when women start having children, but how compressed or spread-out childbearing has become across the reproductive years.

Since 1950, the median total fertility rate has fallen from nearly six births per woman to under two (United Nations 2024). As fertility levels converged worldwide, so too did the analytical toolkit used to monitor them: the total fertility rate (TFR) summarizes the quantum of fertility, and the mean age at childbearing (MAC) captures its central timing. Both indicators are indispensable, but both reduce a complex distributional process to a single number. They cannot reveal whether births cluster tightly around the mean age or spread across the full reproductive lifespan. Two countries can share identical TFR and MAC values yet exhibit very different fertility schedules: one concentrated between ages 25 and 35, another stretching from adolescence into the forties.

What existing approaches do and don’t capture

Efforts to go beyond averages have a long history in demography. An influential line of research quantifies how concentrated reproduction is among women, i.e. what share of women account for what share of all births. Drawing on Lorenz-curve principles, Vaupel and Goodwin (1987) constructed such indices for the United States, and Lutz (1989) extended them globally; Shkolnikov et al. (2007) later applied similar tools to European and American cohorts. A separate strand examines the shape of the fertility age schedule through its mean and variance, though these parameters assume a symmetric distribution and struggle when fertility schedules are skewed or multi-peaked (Chandola et al. 1999). More recently, percentile-based metrics have proven their value in measuring inequality in ages at death (Shi et al. 2022), pointing toward an approach that is robust to irregular distributions and straightforward to interpret.

What has been missing is a measure focused on the temporal spread of fertility by age: not who bears children, but over how many reproductive years most births occur in a given population. This is the gap the childbearing span is designed to fill (Spoorenberg 2026). It offers a direct and globally comparable lens for tracking this distributional dimension of fertility.

The childbearing span: concept and intuition

The childbearing span measures the number of years separating the age at which a population reaches 10% of its total fertility from the age at which it reaches 90%. It captures the width of the fertility schedule (i.e. how many years of reproductive life account for the bulk of childbearing) rather than simply its level or central timing. A span of 13 years, as observed in India today, means that 80% of births are concentrated into just 13 years. A span of 19 years, as in Peru, reflects a much more spread-out pattern. Both countries share nearly identical total fertility rates, yet their reproductive age distributions look strikingly different.

This distinction matters for several reasons. The spread of fertility affects demographic momentum, the overlap of generations, and intergenerational support structures. It is also closely tied to the social transformations, such as in education, employment, contraception, and gender norms, that reshape when and how reproduction is organized within societies.

A worldwide compression, unfolding unevenly

Applying this approach to a global dataset from 1950 to 2025 reveals a clear global trend: childbearing has been compressed into steadily shorter reproductive windows over the past 75 years. The global average childbearing span declined from about 19 years in 1950 to under 17 years in 2025, meaning the world’s reproductive age distributions have narrowed by roughly two years on average (Figure 1).

Behind this overall trend lie sharply divergent regional trajectories. Eastern and South-Eastern Asia underwent the most dramatic compression: spans fell from around 19.5 years in 1950 to approximately 13.5 years by the early 1990s, driven by rapid fertility transitions, strong government policies, and normative convergence around socially sanctioned ages for childbearing. Today, this region stands at the extreme end of concentration globally.

Sub-Saharan Africa tells a different story. Despite substantial fertility decline from over six births per woman to around 4.3, the region’s childbearing spans have remained consistently broad, barely narrowing over seven decades. This persistence suggests that wide age distributions are maintained by structural and cultural factors such as the continued social importance of motherhood, plural marriage systems that extend fertility into older ages and, possibly, risk-diversification strategies in high-mortality and high-uncertainty environments.

Europe, Northern America, Australia, and New Zealand display yet another pattern. After early compression through the 1970s, spans temporarily widened between 1980 and 2010, when fertility postponement intensified, before narrowing again. This U-shaped trajectory illustrates how period measures are sensitive to ongoing timing shifts: when large numbers of women delay births simultaneously, fertility appears more dispersed in any given year than it actually is across cohorts.

Concentration is not simply a function of fertility level

One of the most striking findings concerns the relationship between fertility levels and concentration patterns (Figure 2). In 1950, despite vast differences in how many children women had, the width of fertility schedules was remarkably similar across countries: most childbearing spanned an interval of between 45% and 55% of the 35-year reproductive period. By 2025, that uniformity has dissolved. Countries with identical total fertility rates of around two births per woman now display concentration shares ranging from 30% to 50%, representing a near two-fold difference in the proportion of reproductive life devoted to childbearing.

This decoupling of level from distribution signals that fertility concentration has become an independent demographic dimension, shaped by cultural norms, institutional contexts, and socioeconomic structures that operate separately from the quantum of fertility. Understanding why countries at similar fertility levels have such different age distributions requires looking beyond the number of children to the social organization of reproduction itself.

A simple tool with broad analytical reach

The childbearing span requires only standard age-specific fertility rates (i.e. data that are relatively easily available) and yields an immediately interpretable quantity: a number of years. It can be disaggregated by region, income group, or social subpopulation whenever data allow, and it can complement the total fertility rate and mean age at childbearing in routine demographic monitoring.

As fertility continues to decline globally, differences in concentration patterns may become increasingly consequential, reflecting distinct experiences of reproductive timing across populations and raising questions about equity, autonomy, and the conditions under which women make childbearing decisions. The childbearing span offers a straightforward entry point for tracking these distributional dynamics across time and place.

* The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.

Reference

Chandola, T., Coleman, D.A. and Hiorns, R.W. 1999. “Recent European fertility patterns: Fitting curves to ‘distorted’ distributions.” Population Studies 53(3): 317–329.

Lutz, W. 1989. Distributional Aspects of Human Fertility: A Global Comparative Study. Academic Press.

Shi, J., Aburto, J., Martikainen, P., Tarkiainen, L. and van Raalte, A. 2022. “A distributional approach to measuring lifespan stratification.” Population Studies 77(1): 15–33.

Shkolnikov, V.M., Andreev, E.M., Houle, R. and Vaupel, J.W. 2007. “The concentration of reproduction in cohorts of women in Europe and the United States.” Population and Development Review 33(1): 67–100.

Spoorenberg, T. 2026. “Global trends in the compression of childbearing spans, 1950–2025: A new approach to the age distribution of fertility.” Journal of Population Research 43:12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-026-09420-6 

United Nations. 2024. World Population Prospects 2024. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. https://population.un.org/wpp/ 

Vaupel, J.W. and Goodwin, D.G. 1987. “The concentration of reproduction among U.S. women, 1917-1980.” Population and Development Review 13(4): 723–730.

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Son preference is well documented across South and East Asia. However, the Central Asian region has received far less scholarly attention. Central Asian societies are largely patriarchal and patrilineal, with men often viewed as symbols of family continuity. Uzbekistan’s sex ratio at birth, 108 boys per 100 girls, i.e. well above the natural level of around 105, is the highest in the region and comparable to that of India, where son preference has been extensively studied. 

Country context

Uzbekistan is a double-landlocked nation, and, with it 24 million inhabitants, the most populous country in Central Asia. Historically, it has been the intersection of many civilizations and empires, including the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great’s empire, the Mongol Empire, and the Timurid Empire. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Uzbekistan was part of the Russian Empire and later of the Soviet Union, whose collapse, in 1990, paved the way for its independence. Since then, Uzbekistan has experienced substantial economic, demographic, and social change, transforming itself from a low-income to a middle-income country. 

Uzbekistan is a patriarchal and patrilineal society, where family lineage and inheritance are traditionally passed through the male line. Although recent legal reforms have promoted gender equality, deeply rooted customs continue to influence family dynamics. In Uzbek culture, sons are traditionally viewed as lifelong pillars of the family, responsible for carrying on the family name, inheriting property, and caring for aging parents. This cultural norm is reflected in this Uzbek proverb: O‘g‘il – tayanch, qiz – mehmon (A son is a support, a daughter is a guest). 

Son preference and fertility

In a recent study (Dushamova et al., 2026), we used data from the recent round of Uzbekistan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS, 2021–2022) to examine whether son preference influences the likelihood of having another child and the duration of the subsequent birth intervals. To this end we separately considered the effect of three independent variables: 

1) Sex of the latest child

2) Presence of at least one son, and

3) Number of sons. 

The main results we obtained are displayed in Figure 1.

The sex of the firstborn child, male or female, plays no role in women’s decisions about having additional children (Figure 1). However, from the second birth onwards, a clear pattern emerges: if the second-born child is male, women are up to 10% less likely to have a third birth. The effect becomes more pronounced when considering whether a woman has at least one son at a given birth order. After two children, women with at least one son are up to 16.7% less likely to proceed to a third birth. By the third and fourth birth orders, this gap widens to between 32% and 36%. The number of sons further reinforces this pattern. After the fourth birth, women with one, two, three, or four sons are 28.6% to 38.5% less likely to have a fifth birth compared to those whose first four children are female. 

We also found a significant association between son preference and subsequent birth intervals. After the first birth, women with a firstborn son have a 14% longer subsequent birth interval. Similarly, having a male second-born child is associated with a 23% longer interval before the next birth. The effect is more pronounced when considering whether a woman has at least one son at a given birth order. Having at least one son is associated with a 35% longer interval between the second and third birth, and a 28% longer interval between the third and fourth. Women with a son are also significantly less likely to conceive within 24 months of a previous birth, or within the shorter and riskier thresholds of 15 or 18 months.

Son preference also shapes family planning. Women with at least one son are around 9 percentage points more likely to use contraceptives, suggesting that once a son is born, women actively take steps to limit further childbearing.

The stopping effect is stronger in rural areas, and results are broadly similar across income groups. These findings hold when the analysis is restricted to women aged 40 and above.

Our findings are comparable with other studies on Asian countries (Hoq, 2019; Hoque & Boulier, 2020; Javed & Mughal, 2020, 2022; Jiang et al., 2016; Robitaille & Milla, 2022; Zaidi & Morgan, 2016), and, in particular, align with those of a recent study on Uzbekistan’s neighboring country, Kyrgyzstan (Kazenin, 2023).

Summing up

Our research provides what we believe is the first evidence of son preference in Uzbekistan in terms of fertility behaviour, rather than sex ratio at birth, and the results that we obtain, not surprisingly, point in the same direction: son preference is a reality.

Despite progress in recent years, much remains to be done: the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal No. 5, which focuses on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, has not yet been reached in Uzbekistan.

References

Dushamova, K., Javed, R., Suyunov, G., & Zakirova, M. (2026). A Tale of Two Choices : Son Preference and Reproductive Outcomes in Uzbekistan. Review of Development Economics, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.70152

Hoq, M. N. (2019). Effects of son preference on fertility: A parity progression analysis. Corvinus Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 10(1), 27–45. https://doi.org/10.14267/CJSSP.2019.1.2

Hoque, N., & Boulier, B. L. (2020). Hi-tech Sexism? Evidence from Bangladesh. B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, 20(3), 61–98. https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2019-0269

Javed, R., & Mughal, M. (2020). Preference for boys and length of birth intervals in Pakistan. Research in Economics, 74(2), 140–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rie.2020.04.001

Javed, R., & Mughal, M. (2022). Changing patterns of son preference and fertility in Pakistan. Journal of International Development, 34(6), 1086–1109. https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3618

Jiang, Q., Li, Y., & Sánchez-Barricarte, J. J. (2016). Fertility Intention, Son Preference, and Second Childbirth: Survey Findings from Shaanxi Province of China. Social Indicators Research, 125(3), 935–953. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0875-z

Kazenin, K. (2023). Son preference, gender asymmetries and parity progressions: the case of Kyrgyzstan. Asian Population Studies, 19(1), 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441730.2021.1992858

Robitaille, M., & Milla, J. (2022). Son Targeting Fertility Behavior in Albania, IZA Discussion Paper,  Issue 15122.

Zaidi, B., & Morgan, S. P. (2016). In the Pursuit of Sons: Additional Births or Sex-Selective Abortion in Pakistan? Population and Development Review, 42(4), 693–710. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12002

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For nearly half the population, health and wellbeing fluctuates across the menstrual cycle, but their cyclical health experience remains absent from the surveys we use to understand population health. As a result, what we know about gender differences in health and wellbeing may be incomplete and misunderstood.

Menstrual health: measured but missed

Menstrual cycles affect mood, energy, pain, and daily functioning for a substantial share of the population across several decades of their life course. Around 38% of menstruating women report being unable to perform all their regular daily activities during menstruation, with consequences extending to work productivity, academic performance, and social participation (Schoep et al., 2019; Leon-Larios et al., 2024). Menstrual irregularity is also associated with longer-term health conditions including cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders (Attia et al., 2023), making the menstrual cycle not just a reproductive marker but a crucial health indicator (Vollmar et al., 2025).

In early 2026, we conducted small-scale exploratory qualitative research in the Netherlands to inform and interpret the findings of the survey review, including an in-person focus group discussion with three participants aged 24 who currently menstruated, and an online in-depth interview with one participant aged 49 with perimenopausal experience. Both interviews were conducted in English and lasted approximately 60 minutes. Participants were recruited through personal networks. 

Although our sample is small and not representative, its results seem clear: menstrual cycles matter for women, but are ignored, or at least underplayed, by society as a whole. As a 49-year-old participant in our research described: “I even tried at some point to start moving important appointments to a date that would not fall within my PMS (premenstrual syndrome) phase, because I just thought if I have an important meeting, right then, it will just mess it up”. Another, aged 24, put it simply: “I cry more before my period and then I don’t know why I’m that sad if I don’t look at my tracker. And then when I get my period I’m like, that’s why I was sad”.

These are not marginal experiences. They are widespread, consequential, and entirely invisible in the data we use to understand population health.

What surveys currently capture and what they miss

A review of major population health and demographic surveys, including the European Social Survey, the Generations and Gender Survey, the WHO World Health Survey Plus, the Socio- Economic Panel and the Demographic and Health Survey reveals a consistent pattern. All include single-item measures of self-rated health and life satisfaction. None capture menstrual cycle phase, cycle regularity, or symptom burden as health-relevant variables.Where menstruation does appear in these surveys, it is framed as a reproductive marker, e.g. age at first menstruation, menopause onset, or contraceptive use to prevent pregnancy. The health dimension of menstruation, how it shapes daily functioning, mood, and energy across the cycle is not present.

This matters because these health measures are collected at a single moment in time. For women who menstruate that moment is not neutral. As one participant in our research reflected: “When you get those questionnaires and they ask, ‘how are you?’, I find it sometimes difficult to answer because it’s so cyclical. In one week, I would feel super energetic and like the old me, and if I would have to answer that questionnaire in a week that it’s not going well, then it really would be quite low”.

Cyclical health variation is one factor that could contribute to observed gender gaps in self-reported health in ways that have not been examined. Without knowing where a woman is in her cycle or how much menstrual symptoms affect her daily life, a health rating captured on a high-symptom day may say more about the timing of the survey than about her general health. This may help explain why women report poorer self-rated health on average than men, though this gap narrows when health covariates are controlled (Zajacova et al., 2017). This suggests that unmeasured factors may be contributing to what looks like a stable gender difference. It should be noted, however, that gender differences in self-rated health persist beyond menopause, suggesting that menstrual cycle variation is one contributing factor among several, rather than a complete explanation of the gender health gap.

A small addition with significant potential

The good news is that this is a solvable problem. Menstrual cycle characteristics can be captured through brief, accessible self-reported items in large-scale studies. Women can and do report their cycle status, symptom frequency and the impact of symptoms on daily activities and these reports are both feasible and informative at population scale (Ali et al., 2026; Dhonnabháin & Wallace, 2025).

Two brief items, one asking where a respondent places themselves in their menstrual cycle at the moment of interview and one asking how often menstrual symptoms have affected their daily activities in the past month, would be enough to begin addressing this concern. They require no medical diagnosis, no clinical knowledge, and minimal survey time.

When asked about the idea, participants in our research were unambiguous: “This is such an easy thing to include, it’s one question and then you would be able to adjust for it as a variable. That does not seem scientific, to exclude half the population”.

The policy relevance is also clear. Spain became the first European country to introduce statutory menstrual sick leave in 2023, and similar provisions exist in several countries across Asia and Africa (Boletí, 2023). Evaluating whether such policies reduce symptom burden and improve daily functioning requires population-level data that current surveys simply cannot provide.

Menstrual health has long been treated as a topic solely for women’s health, studied separately in specific research, outside the mainstream of population science. But cyclical health variation does not exist in isolation. It intersects with work, education, relationships, and social participation in ways that only become visible when measured alongside the full range of variables that general population surveys capture. Growing policy attention, like Spain’s introduction of menstrual sick leave in 2023, reflects a broader recognition that this is a population-level issue. A few simple questions could make a previously invisible health experience finally countable and comparable.

References

Ali, Z. E., Wainwright, E., Murugesu, S., Moraru, S., Lawrie, L., Getreu, N., & O’Neill, H. C. (2026) How well do women understand their menstrual cycles? Insights from 383,085 UK based women. Reproductive Health.

Attia, G. M., Alharbi, O. A., & Aljohani, R. M. (2023). The impact of irregular menstruation on health: a review of the literature. Cureus, 15(11).

Boletín Oficial del Estado. Ley Orgánica 1/2023, de 28 de febrero, por la que se modifica la Ley Orgánica 2/2010, de 3 de marzo, de salud sexual y reproductiva y de la interrupción voluntaria del embarazo. España, núm. 51, 1 de marzo de 2023. https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2023-5364

Dhonnabháin, B. N., & Wallace, H. (2025). Exploring the role of menstrual perceptions on health, well- being, and daily functioning. Women’s Health, 21, 17455057251399893.

Leon-Larios, F., Silva-Reus, I., Puente Martínez, M. J., Renuncio Roba, A., Ibeas Martínez, E., Lahoz Pascual, I., … & Quílez Conde, J. C. (2024). Influence of menstrual pain and symptoms on activities of daily living and work absenteeism: a cross-sectional study. Reproductive Health, 21(1), 25.

Schoep, M. E., Nieboer, T. E., van der Zanden, M., Braat, D. D., & Nap, A. W. (2019). The impact of menstrual symptoms on everyday life: a survey among 42,879 women. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology, 220(6), 569-e1.

Vollmar, A. K. R., Mahalingaiah, S., & Jukic, A. M. Z. (2025). The menstrual cycle: a vital sign across the lifespan. The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women’s Health, 1(2), e141-e145.

Zajacova, A., Huzurbazar, S., & Todd, M. (2017). Gender and the structure of self-rated health across the adult life span. Social Science & Medicine, 187, 58-66.

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What is the link between couples’ employment and having a first child? A pan-European survey conducted in 24 countries, the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions, makes it possible to address this vital question. Using this database, in a recent paper we investigated whether cohabiting couples (both married and unmarried) in which both partners have stable, full-time jobs, which they describe as following a “dual-earner” model, were more likely to have a first child than those in which only the man works, following a “male breadwinner” model (Greulich and Rendall 2026). We focused, in particular, on the role of the woman’s employment stability, by analyzing up to two continuous years of her employment history before she became pregnant with the couple’s first child. 

Woman’s and male partner’s stable employment viewed jointly

In Figure 1, we present predicted probabilities of first birth by joint combinations of woman’s and male partner’s full-time, full-year employment (“FT employment”) in year t–2. These probabilities derive from regression models including controls for marital status (married versus cohabiting) age, year, and country.

The configuration in which the woman and her male partner are both FT employed has the highest first-birth propensity, whereas the opposite configuration, “neither FT employed”, has the lowest. The configurations where only one partner is FT employed are in-between: compared to both partners being FT employed, each of the two configurations in which the woman is not FT employed (categories 3 and 4 in Figure 1) is associated with a statistically significantly lower first-birth probability. 

Woman’s stable employment across two years before becoming pregnant 

In Figure 2, we show predicted probabilities according to whether the woman was FT employed in one or both of the two years preceding pregnancy. The first-birth probability is highest for women who were FT employed in both of the two years (first category), and lowest for women who were FT employed in neither of the two years (last category). 

The first-birth probability is second highest for women who had just entered FT employment, and is slightly lower for women who had just exited FT employment. The latter configuration is statistically significantly different from the first-birth probability of women who were “FT employed in both years”. This pattern (highest first-birth probability for women in FT employment in both years) constitutes further evidence that for women in a couple, employment stability is positively associated with the transition to first birth. 

Discussion

Across 24 European countries in the period 2004-2017, we find strong evidence that couples’ first-birth propensities are positively associated not only with the man’s, but also the woman’s, stable full-time employment. This is consistent with theoretical literature suggesting that the dual-earner couple is increasingly normative in Europe (Knight and Brinton, 2017). Studies in Northern Europe (e.g., Kristensen and Lappegård 2022) have previously shown consistently positive associations of employment with first birth for women as well as for men, although even there, according to Miettinen and Jalovaara (2020), this association may not hold for less-educated women.

Instead, across all education levels, we find that for women in a couple, stable full-time employment is the most likely circumstance for starting a family, and that this holds across Europe. Other studies of more recent periods have shown positive employment associations with first birth for women, in particular in Southern Europe (Scherer and Brini, 2023) and in Western Europe (Zhou and Kan, 2019; Schmitt, 2021). This has led scholars working in this field to conclude that gender differences in the positive role of employment for fertility are disappearing throughout Europe. Our study provides new evidence indicating that the woman’s employment stability has indeed become a critical precondition for starting a family, with stable employment now being at least as important for women as for men.

Note that to focus on the employment-fertility nexus, we excluded women who were students or in training at the start of exposure to first birth. Moreover, our analytic sample only included women observed for at least three waves and continuously partnered for at least two waves. This longer observation period allowed us to measure employment stability over 12 months and reduce potential endogeneity with conception and birth, but these restrictions make it more difficult to generalize our findings.

Policy implications

By re-evaluating the association between women’s employment and partnered first births in Europe, our study was able to generate a coherent picture of the importance of employment stability of both partners, both across Europe and across educational levels. We conclude that the era of the male-breadwinner model is increasingly a phenomenon of the past as couples across Europe prepare for family formation. 

Low fertility in Europe and other high-income countries continues to be a major policy concern. In many European countries, however, a dual-earner norm co-exists with greater challenges for the woman than for the man in a couple to continue her employment trajectory once childbearing begins. Our finding of a strong positive association between women’s stable employment and first birth suggests that, besides a need for family policies encouraging gender-neutral work-life balance options (formal childcare, remunerated parental leave), economic policies facilitating the stable, long-term employment of both partners are also crucial. 

References 

Greulich, A., & Rendall. M.S. (2026). An ongoing gender revolution in Europe: Women’s stable employment as a precondition for partnered first births. Population Research and Policy Review 45:8.

Knight, C. R., & Brinton, M. C. (2017). One egalitarianism or several? Two decades of gender role attitude change in Europe. American Journal of Sociology, 122(5), 1485–1532.

Kristensen, A., & Lappegård, T. (2022). Unemployment and fertility: The relationship between individual and aggregated unemployment and fertility during 1994–2014 in Norway. Demographic Research, 46(35). 

Miettinen, A., & Jalovaara, M. (2020). Unemployment delays first birth but not for all. Life stage and educational differences in the effects of employment uncertainty on first births.  Advances in Life Course Research, 43, Article 100320. 

Scherer, S., & Brini, E. (2023). Employment instability and childbirth over the last 20 years in Italy. European Journal of Population, 39, 31.

Schmitt, C. (2021). The impact of economic uncertainty, precarious employment, and risk attitudes on the transition to parenthood. Advances in Life Course Research, 47. 

Zhou, M., & Kan, M.-Y. (2019). A new family equilibrium? Changing dynamics between the gender division of labor and fertility in Great Britain, 1991–2017. Demographic Research, 40, 1455–1500.

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The notion of “lowest-low fertility” emerged in the early 2000s to describe an unprecedented demographic development: total fertility rates (TFR) falling to 1.3 children per woman or below in a small group of European countries (Kohler et al. 2002). At the time, the concept provided a useful diagnostic tool, signaling a historically unique demographic trajectory, with potential implications for population ageing, labour force dynamics, and longer-term demographic sustainability.

Two decades later, the empirical landscape has changed substantially. Fertility levels below 1.3, no longer confined to a handful of countries, have spread across diverse regions, including East Asia, Southern and Eastern Europe, and parts of Latin America. As a result, a growing share of the world’s population now lives under what would be classified as “lowest-low fertility.”

At the same time, the analytical usefulness of the concept is further undermined by the widening range of fertility levels it now includes. Originally associated with a relatively narrow band below 1.3 children per woman, the category today spans TFRs from around 0.7 to 1.3. From a demographic perspective, this is a considerable range: differences within it translate into markedly distinct long-term population outcomes, particularly when compounded over time. 

As the category has expanded geographically and substantively, its capacity to distinguish between demographic regimes has weakened. What was once a relatively coherent grouping now encompasses countries characterized by diverse demographic dynamics and varying levels of socioeconomic development and future prospects.

Diverging demographic trajectories

A limitation of the concept lies in its implicit assumption that similar fertility levels imply broadly comparable demographic futures. Increasingly, this assumption does not hold. Countries with TFRs below 1.3 display substantial variation in population trajectories, reflecting differences in migration, mortality, and age structure. For instance, while some countries with very low fertility face sustained population decline and rapid ageing, others continue to grow due to positive net migration. These differences are not marginal: they fundamentally shape the scale and pace of demographic change, as in the cases of Canada and South Korea, both “lowest-low” fertility populations.

Moreover, variation within fertility timing itself also matters (Sobotka 2017). In several Latin American contexts, recent declines are driven in part by the postponement of childbearing, particularly among younger cohorts, rather than by a uniform reduction in completed fertility. Such dynamics may imply different long-term outcomes than those observed in contexts where low fertility is more deeply entrenched across cohorts and the postponement transition is complete, providing less margin for recuperation.

At the same time, the persistence of the 1.3 threshold in public and policy discourse has contributed to a simplified narrative in which crossing a specific numerical boundary is equated with entering a zone of demographic crisis. This framing may inadvertently reinforce alarmist interpretations and direct attention toward policies aimed at increasing fertility, despite mixed evidence regarding their effectiveness.

Towards a multidimensional perspective

Reassessing the relevance of “lowest-low fertility” does not imply that fertility has become unimportant. Rather, it highlights the need to situate fertility within a broader analytical framework.

Population change reflects the interaction of multiple components—fertility, mortality, migration, and age structure—alongside the social and economic conditions that shape them. In many contexts, factors such as improvements in health, education, and productivity, or sustained migration inflows, may exert a stronger influence on demographic trajectories than modest variations in fertility. In fact, recent research further shows that, in some countries, changes in mortality can have a greater impact on population dynamics than shifts in fertility (Gietel-Basten et al. 2026).

A more comprehensive perspective would therefore move beyond single-threshold classifications and instead emphasize the diversity of demographic pathways observed across countries (Parr 2025). Such an approach is better suited to understanding contemporary population dynamics and to informing policy responses aligned with specific national contexts (Gietel-Basten & Pardo 2026).

References 

Gietel-Basten, S., & Pardo, I. (2026). Beyond Lowest-Low Fertility: Why Post-Transitional Populations Follow Divergent Paths. Population and Development Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.70052

Gietel-Basten, S., Pothisiri, W., & Scherbov, S. (2026). Investments in health and mortality reduction to address population decline. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 104(2), 94–102. https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.25.293627

Kohler, H.-P., Billari, F. C., & Ortega, J. A. (2002). The emergence of lowest-low fertility in Europe during the 1990s. Population and Development Review, 28(4), 641–680. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2002.00641.x

Parr, N. (2025). Total fertility rates with immediate and very long run zero population growth implications for European countries. Genus Vol 81, article 27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41118-025-00268-x

Sobotka, T. (2017). Post-transitional fertility: The role of childbearing postponement in fuelling very low fertility levels. Journal of Biosocial Science, 49(S1), S20–S45. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021932017000323

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Fertility is declining all over the world, and Türkiye is no exception. Its fertility, close to replacement level for a long time, has recently recorded one of the steepest declines in Europe: from 2.11 to 1.48 children per woman between 2013 and 2024. Period measures, however, may be misleading with regard to the underlying trends: let us investigate the matter in more depth.

Reading the decline through period fertility

TurkStat publishes annual period fertility indicators, including age-specific fertility rates and the total fertility rate (TFR), but it does not release completed cohort fertility for women who have reached the end of their reproductive years. That creates an important limitation: period indicators are indispensable for tracking rapid annual change, but do not tell us how many children women will ultimately have. 

Figure 1 compares age-specific fertility rates in 2013 and 2024. The age pattern of childbearing shows that fertility declined at all reproductive ages, while childbearing became more concentrated in the late 20s and early 30s. Mean age at first birth also rose in this period, from 25.5 to 27.3 years.

Childbearing is clearly being delayed, but to what extent are we also observing a real fertility reduction? To answer this question, two steps are needed: to break the decline down by parity and to assess whether tempo effects are contributing to the observed drop.

The decline by birth order

Between 2013 and 2024, the total fertility rate fell by 0.625 births per woman. If the recent decline were mainly a story of delayed entry into parenthood, first births would be expected to account for the largest share of the downturn. But parity decomposition shows that the biggest loss comes from second births, accounting for nearly 40% of the total drop in fertility (Table 1).

This parity-specific pattern shows that the recent downturn is not only about whether people become parents, but also about whether families move beyond their first child. That, in turn, leads to the next question: how much of this decline reflects tempo effects, and at which birth orders are those effects strongest?

How much of the decline reflects timing?

To examine whether timing shifts are contributing to Türkiye’s recent fertility decline, Bongaarts and Feeney’s (1998) adjustment by birth order can be used. 

Across the period examined, the broad pattern is consistent: tempo effects are most pronounced at first birth. Table 2 illustrates this pattern for 2023. In that year, the conventional first-birth rate was 0.618, while the corresponding tempo-adjusted value was 0.787. The gap is much larger than for higher birth orders, which indicates that postponement is strongest at first births.

Timing, equity, and policy

As recent N-IUSSP discussion has noted, fertility postponement is not a universal correlate of fertility decline (Spoorenberg and Skirbekk 2026). With regard to Türkiye, while definitive conclusions are not possible, the available evidence suggests a mixed pattern: delayed family formation, combined with weaker progression beyond the first child.

If sustaining fertility is a policy goal in Türkiye, the focus should be less on broad numerical targets (e.g. “three children per family”) and more on the points where the current decline is concentrated: delayed family formation and weaker progression to a second birth. As childlessness still appears relatively limited, the more immediate concern seems to be the possible consolidation of the one-child family norm. Economic and social conditions must be improved so that having two children, as in the previous decade, becomes both possible and desirable again.

References

Bongaarts, J., & Feeney, G. (1998). On the quantum and tempo of fertility. Population and Development Review, 24(2), 271–291.

Euronews. (2026, March 2). Why is Turkey recording Europe’s steepest fertility decline over the past decade?

Euronews. (2026, March 14). Europe’s fertility rates keep falling: Which countries have the highest rates and biggest drops?

Spoorenberg, T., & Skirbekk, V. (2026). Fertility postponement is not a universal correlate of fertility decline. N-IUSSP.

Turkish Statistical Institute. (2025, March 31). Birth statistics, 2024.

Yavuz, S. (2025). Türkiye’de doğurganlık dönüşümü (2001–2023): Düşük doğurganlık karşısında pronatalist adımlar. ASA Dergisi, 3(2), 157–198.

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