BEurope’sothercrisis.docVIP

Europe’s other crisis Recession is bringing Europe’s brief fertility rally to a shuddering halt Jun 30th 2012 | VIENNA | from the print edition EUROPES crisis is worse than it looks. As if the continents troubled financial markets and economy were not a big enough burden, a decade-long (and largely unnoticed) improvement in its fertility rate seems to have come to an abrupt end. Of the 15 countries that have reported figures so far this year, 11 saw falls in their fertility rates in 2011 (the fertility rate is the number of children a woman can expect during her lifetime). Some of the biggest declines occurred in countries hardest-hit by the euro crisis. Spains fertility rate fell from 1.46 in 2008 to around 1.38 in 2011. Latvias fell from 1.44 to below 1.20. Tomas Sobotka of the Vienna Institute of Demography points out that, in these countries, the fertility rise of the previous ten years has been wiped out in three. Big declines also occurred in Nordic countries that do not have fast-rising unemployment or big cuts in state spending. Norways fertility rate fell from 1.95 to 1.88 in 2010-11; Denmarks from 1.88 to 1.76. But whether countries have high fertility rates, like Britain, or low ones, like Hungary, the trend is similar: a ten-year fertility rise stopped around 2008 as the economic crisis hit, and started to slide in 2011 (see chart 1). In the markets, three years is an age; in demography, it is the blink of an eye. Nine months at least must pass between an event and a corresponding change in the birth rate. Demographic statistics also tend to lag by a year or so. To see such a change in trend so soon after the start of recession is remarkable. But although there is a link between hard times and family formation, its nature is controversial. Adam Smith thought that economic uncertainty was bad for fertility. Others argued that recession increases births, by lowering the opportunity cost of children and encouraging women to have babies they wanted anyway d