Recession is bringing Europe’s brief fertility rally to a shuddering halt
EUROPE’S crisis is worse than it looks. As if the continent’s 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. Spain’s fertility rate fell from 1.46 in 2008 to around 1.38 in 2011. Latvia’s 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. Norway’s fertility rate fell from 1.95 to 1.88 in 2010-11; Denmark’s 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).
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. Spain’s fertility rate fell from 1.46 in 2008 to around 1.38 in 2011. Latvia’s 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. Norway’s fertility rate fell from 1.95 to 1.88 in 2010-11; Denmark’s 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).
Fonte: The Economist, 30/06/2012
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