Today's World's

Fertility

Lyra Penelope O. Oliquino

BSM 1A
Hello! I’m...
Lyra Penelope O. Oliquino, from BSM 1A .
Today I will be here to walk you through
what is fertility and it's consequences..
 FERTILITY
Let’s dive in and get to know some interesting facts about fertility!
 Did you know?
Throughout history, humans have generally preferred large
families—mostly to ensure the survival of a particular family line
or racial group. High mortality rates from plagues, predators, and
wars drove people to have as many children as possible.

However, the situation changed dramatically in the twentieth

century, as technological advances of various kinds caused a
global "population explosion," with the world currently gaining 90
million people per year (most of this increase in poorer countries).
According to current trends, the global population will exceed 6
billion in the early 2000s and 8 billion by the 2020s.
 Did you know?
Sociologists are concerned about global population growth. Fertility is the first
factor that influences population size. People sometimes confuse fertility with
fecundity, which refers to the number of children an average woman is capable of
bearing. Demographers use governmental records to calculate a country's fertility
rate. Health, finances, and personal decisions all have a significant impact on
fecundity. Demographers use governmental records to calculate the crude birth
rate to determine a country's fertility rate (the number of live births for every
thousand people in a population). This rate is calculated by dividing the total
population by the number of live births in a year and multiplying the result by 1,000.
As one might expect, the governmental records used in this type of research may
not be completely accurate, particularly in third-world countries where such records
may not exist at all.
Fertility rates have fallen by half over the last 70 years around the world.
Among the reasons is women's empowerment in education and the
workforce, lower child mortality, and the increased cost of raising children.
Despite this, the world's population is more than three times larger than in the
mid-twentieth century. From an estimated 2.5 billion people in 1950, the
global human population reached 8.0 billion in mid-November 2022, an
increase of 1 billion since 2010 and 2 billion since 1998.
Despite the Philippines' culture of large families, we have seen
a decline in fertility rates. In 2020, we had a fertility rate of 1.9
offspring per woman aged 15 to 49, down from 2.7 in 2017.
Which ranks third-lowest in Southeast Asia.
 Did you know?
The statistic shows the 20 countries with the lowest fertility rates in 2021. All figures are
estimates. In 2021, the fertility rate in Taiwan was estimated to be at 1.07 children per
woman, making it the lowest fertility rate worldwide.
How is the
issue being
addressed?
A record low of 811,000 births were registered in Japan
last year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which
discouraged marriage and pregnancies. Birth rates have
remained low this year due to the effects of the pandemic.
The number of births reported in the first half of this year
totaled 367,232, a 5% decrease from the same period last
year.

The Japanese government has over the years

implemented a number of initiatives to promote more
births, including the Angel Plan, a five-year plan to help
couples raise children, the New Angel Plan in 1999, and the
Plus One Policy in 2009. To stop the nation's declining birth
rate, they are also considering creating a sophisticated AI
matchmaking system.
South Korea, a neighboring nation, plans to give every family with a newborn child a monthly
allowance of 1 million won ($740), as part of its most recent initiative to promote births and try to
address the world's lowest fertility rate.
In 1987, Singapore started implementing measures to
increase fertility. There are three main groups: (1)
financial incentives; (2) parental support for balancing
work and family; and (3) marital policy. In 2000, the
government started providing parents with cash
payments and a co-savings plan. However, despite all
of the government's efforts, many couples choose not
to have children.
Since low fertility is slowing the growth rate of the world’s population,
why should we be concerned?

The answer is that the governments of the countries with very low
fertility rates are evidently not celebrating the prospect that a
somewhat lower global population would be achieved as a result of
a major population decline in their countries. That is, while some
people like to think in terms of common global humanity, most
people and most governments care more about the future viability
of their own families and countries.
Low fertility has the drawback of reducing
population size only among the young, rather
than across the board. If the population is to
be demographically sustainable, low fertility
will eventually result in an age structure that
builds momentum for further population
decline. Additionally, populations with low
fertility may experience a sharp decline in size.
The longer low fertility persists, the more
challenging it is to stop population decline.

In order to avoid this scenario, countries must

work to increase their fertility rates while their
age structures still support population growth.
From 1950 onwards we have very good data
from the UN Population Division. The chart here
shows the average across the world: the global
Total Fertility Rate. Up to 1965 the average
woman in the world had more than 5 children.
Since then we have seen an unprecedented
change. The number has halved. Globally, the
average per woman is now below 2.5 children
l

r
Wanting more leisure time and personal freedom; not having a partner yet; and
being unable to afford child-care costs were the top reasons given by young
adults for not wanting or being certain they wanted children, according to a new
Morning Consult survey for The New York Times. These reasons exist not only in
America, but throughout the world, and choosing not to have children is
acceptable. Not everyone is ready or capable of starting a family. However, with
realization comes a set of consequences that affect the entire world. There is a
population decline due to low fertility rates. The longer low fertility persists, the
more difficult it is to reverse population decline. Countries that want to avoid
this situation must strive for higher levels of fertility while their age structures
continue to provide momentum for population growth.

r
At the same time that governments work to increase birth rates, they must deal with the more immediate consequences
of low fertility, namely shrinking labor forces. If current demographic trends continue, Japan's labor force will decline
from 68 million to 46 million between 1999 and 2050, Italy's from 23 million to 14 million, and Germany's from 41 million to
28 million. Although increases in labor productivity over the next half-century are likely to be sufficient to maintain the
size of any one country's economy, capital will flow to countries with relatively high fertility and immigration, such as the
United States, in a global economy fixated on rates of economic growth.

With all of this information, and based on my observations, making the world a better place for all of us, particularly
children, will encourage many more people to have children. Supporting parental leave at the birth of children,
encouraging leave sharing, allowing employees to switch to part-time work with the right to return to full-time work,
providing quality, affordable child care, including after-school care, and recognizing the costs of children in the tax
system are all policy options.
 Thank you!
Do you have any questions?
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 REFERENCES R

Bloomberg - Are you a robot? (n.d.). Bloomberg - Are You a Robot? Retrieved December 7, 2022, from
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Fertility - Wikipedia. (2019, March 1). Fertility - Wikipedia. Retrieved December 7, 2022, from
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quantified%20demographically

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