From costs to culture: what’s behind falling fertility in rich countries?

Fertility rates have fallen rapidly in the UK and other high-income countries in recent years. Education, economic uncertainty and changing gender roles are among the factors that have played a part. Keeping the combination of causes in mind is essential for designing effective policy responses.

People in the UK are having fewer children. In fact, over the past decade, the total fertility rate (TFR) in England and Wales has fallen rapidly, dropping from an average of 1.94 births per woman in 2010 to 1.41 today – the lowest on record.

This sharp decline is not unique to England and Wales, with fertility rates falling across almost all high-income countries to levels well below the so-called replacement rate of around 2.1 births per woman over the past 13 years (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The total fertility rate (TFR) in selected high-income countries, 2010 and 2023

Source: Human Fertility Database.
Note: The TFR is the average number of children a woman would have during her lifetime if she were to experience the fertility rates observed in a given year, for the whole of her reproductive life (age 15-49).

Current theories have failed to explain fully the reasons for these declines and why there are considerable differences both between and within populations. For example, in 2023, the TFR in France was 1.68 compared with just 0.72 in South Korea. Within populations, there are significant regional, educational and ethnic differences in childbearing patterns.

Could UK fertility rates rise again?

The TFR is a useful measure of current fertility in a population. But it is affected by changes in both the timing and level of childbearing. In most advanced economies, the average age at which people start to have children has been steadily increasing (see Figure 2).

Postponing parenthood has been particularly fast in South Korea where the average age at first birth increased from 23.6 years in 1976 to 31 in 2023. When young people start delaying having children, period-level fertility rates fall.

But it is possible that in the future, people can still give birth to children that they did not give birth to at younger ages. If this is the case, then the completed family size may not change very much across birth cohorts despite significant changes in the age at childbirth.

Figure 2. Mean age of women at first birth in selected high-income countries, 1974-2023

Source: Human Fertility Database.

But in many advanced economies – including Japan, South Korea, Spain and Taiwan – low TFRs have existed for decades. In these cases, reductions in childbearing at younger ages are not balanced completely by increases at older ages. This means that overall completed family sizes become lower than in the past.

Limits to the biological reproductive lifespan, particularly for women, mean that when starting a family is continually postponed, childlessness will increase and mothers will have fewer children (Hellstrand et al, 2020).

In general, as the share of childless people increases, the average family size in a country decreases. In some cases, such as Finland, levels of childlessness are high in the presence of relatively high completed family sizes – while one in five women born in Finland in 1977 remained childless, the average completed family size was 1.89, since some women had larger families (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Percentage childless and average completed family size for women born in 1977 in selected high-income countries

Source: Human Fertility Database

How can we explain recent fertility trends?

Explanations for the recent decline in fertility can be grouped into five main themes: increased education; increasing economic costs; housing constraints; changes in gender roles; and changes in preferences.

Education

There is strong evidence that in societies where young people stay in education longer, fertility is lower. As education levels rise, particularly women’s education, better career opportunities and wages increase the economic opportunity costs of having children, since parents often need to reduce their hours or leave the labour market.

Research also shows that the costs of children have also increased due to the greater investments that parents make in their children. Examples of this include greater parental time spent with children and greater financial investment, such as purchasing extra tuition and activities outside the school day.

Economic backdrop

Although recent cohorts of young adults have had better educational opportunities than previous generations, in many cases this has not necessarily translated into well-paid, secure employment. Across many developed economies, young people face increased economic uncertainty, including more fixed-term contracts, lower wages and routine work.

Younger people were also disproportionately affected by the global recession of the late 2000s. The concurrent timing of the economic downturn and declines in fertility in many advanced economies has not gone unnoticed (Matysiak et al, 2021). Indeed, there is a large body of research that shows a negative relationship between unemployment and insecure work on the one hand, and fertility on the other (Van Wijk and Billari, 2024). Economic hardship can lead to fewer births.

Even when economic conditions improved in the second decade of this century, and unemployment rates were coming down – for example, in Denmark, the UK and the United States – fertility rates continued to fall. This led demographers to question whether what matters in terms of reproductive decision-making is not only objective measures of current employment and income, but also perceptions of uncertainty and a lack of certainty in imagined futures (Vignoli et al, 2020).

Recent research findings for the UK support the idea of economic constraints being a key reason for fertility decline. The drop-off in first births over the period 2010-17 was significantly sharper among those with the lowest level of education and hence the greatest chance of facing economic constraints (Kulu et al, 2024).

There are also data on fertility intentions from the 2022/23 UK Generations and Gender Survey showing that people who have both objective and subjective economic uncertainty are less likely to intend to become a parent (Berrington et al, 2024).

Housing

Feeling able – or unable – to put a roof over your family’s head is another central factor behind changes in birth rates. Across the UK, there is widespread housing uncertainty, driven by a lack of available, affordable homes. Over the past decade, average rents have increased by a third.

Research shows that high housing costs make it harder to start living independently and harder to accommodate a growing family. Clearly, a secure job and the availability of suitable housing are crucial prerequisites for starting a family, particularly for younger people.

Gender roles and changing preferences

The effect of changing attitudes towards gender roles on fertility is complex. For a start, improved equality in education and employment for women has not been matched by greater equality in the private sphere – for example, in terms of men’s contributions to domestic work.

Research from the late 1990s and early 2000s suggested that fertility would be lowest in countries where the mismatch in gender equity was greatest, such as southern Europe and East Asia. The argument goes that fertility should rebound once men share care-giving responsibilities, institutions adapt and egalitarian norms align work and family life.

Demographers pointed to the relatively buoyant fertility rates seen in Scandinavia compared with southern Europe or East Asia, and argued that government policies – including free childcare, generous parental leave and emphasis on gender equality – reduced the economic risk of childbearing. Still, the sharp and long‑lasting drop in birth rates across the Scandinavian countries – especially in Finland, where the average number of children per woman fell from 1.9 in 2010 to 1.3 in 2023 – took many by surprise.

In response, some demographers have shifted attention more towards explanations that focus on changing preferences for parenthood, and an increased acceptance of childlessness. It is even possible that a new behavioural norm has emerged – having children later and having smaller families.

This is supported by wider structural changes in high-income societies such as longer periods spent in education and a raised awareness of global issues such as climate change. There is also some empirical evidence that feelings of pessimism about society are associated with a lower probability of becoming a parent, while the evidence regarding concerns for the environment and fertility intentions/behaviour is more mixed (Ivanova and Balbo, 2024; Berrington et al, 2024).

Unrealised fertility: a fertility gap

While voluntary childlessness has become more accepted within European societies, it remains uncommon in most high-income countries. Empirical evidence from the UK Generations and Gender Survey suggests that most people retain a firm desire to have children, but that this desire is not being matched by actual behaviour.

Research shows consistently that people end up having fewer children than they say they would ideally like to have. Figure 4 suggests an unrealised fertility of between 0.5 and 1.0 birth per woman depending on the country.

Figure 4. Mean retrospective ideal and actual family size by age 42–50, by sex and country

Source: Lazzari and Beaujouan, 2026.

In addition to the socio-economic explanations for the fertility gap, the gap between desired and achieved fertility is also caused by difficulties in finding the right partner, relationship instability and poor health (Berrington and Pattaro, 2014).

Policies for parenthood: what works and what doesn’t?

Many governments have introduced policies to try to encourage people to have more children (Gauthier and Gietel‐Basten, 2025). The main reason is that falling birth rates have led to population ageing, which has created long-term financial and social pressures for countries.

Given the multifaceted and inter-related explanations for the recent decline in fertility, it is no wonder that governments have not been able to find a simple solution to raise fertility rates. The impact of cash benefits such as baby bonuses tend to be small, sometimes influencing the timing of births rather than the overall number (Bergsvik et al, 2021). Low-cost, high-quality childcare and well-paid parental leave are necessary but not sufficient, as the recent fertility trends in the Nordic countries show.

Ideally, policies to support individuals and couples need to be holistic and long-term – addressing underlying issues of economic uncertainty by providing stable, well-paid employment and affordable housing. Additional policy measures are then required to reduce work/family conflict, and to encourage men to undertake a more equal share of housework and childcare. Only long-term and holistic approaches will help couples to reduce the gap between their desired and actual family size.

Unintended pregnancies as well as unfulfilled fertility desires often co-exist within the same society (UNFPA, United Nations Population Fund, 2025). So, attention needs to focus not so much on fertility targets as on improving reproductive choice. The success of policies should be assessed not in terms of whether fertility increases, but whether individuals are given reproductive freedom and the ability to achieve their intentions for family life.