Birth Rates Rising Again

摘要

It appears that the era of low birth rates of less than 1.3 children per woman is over. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have shown that the trend toward very low and falling birth rates has reversed throughout Europe. This is mainly because the extremely low birth rates are proving to be a transitional effect: parents were not necessarily having fewer children, they were simply having them later. The number of births, which is calculated for a given moment and is generally referred to as the birth rate, thus fell. The average number of children a woman bore in her lifetime, however, was higher. Now that the tendency toward giving birth later is on the wane, the birth rate figures have recovered.The Max Planck researchers expect them to continue to rise. Whether and when parents finally fulfill their postponed wish to have children depends very much on thestate of the job market. At least in Spain and Poland, good job prospects manifested themselves in a higher birth rate. In contrast, births fell in eight countries at a time when unemployment was rising.