Falling birthrates: cash cannot buy belonging

Why are people in one of the world’s richest, safest countries having so few children? Singapore is asking that question. In 2000, its fertility rate matched the US’ at 1.6 children per woman. By last year, it had dropped to 0.87 — almost half the US rate. Singapore’s leaders, worried about population collapse, have reached for the checkbook. Each child, including those born to unmarried parents, would get US$55,000 in government support by the time they turn 17. Yet a quarter of Singaporeans say they do not intend to have children. Wealth and security, clearly, do not guarantee more babies.

UN data shows that global fertility fell from 5.3 births per woman in 1963 to 2.2 in 2023 — but this masks a growing divide. In some poor sub-Saharan African countries there are around six births per woman. Compare this with England and Wales, where the figure is just 1.39. More than half of the world — including a billion women in India and China — have a fertility rate below the global 2.1 “replacement level” needed to sustain populations without migration.

However, even in poor countries with high mortality rates and consequently higher replacement rates, births outpace deaths. In Nigeria, for example, the fertility rate of 4.4 exceeds its replacement rate of 2.6 children per woman.

To understand this phenomenon, the UN asked 100,000 18 to 39-year-olds from 73 nations their views on relationships and having children. The results, released in July, were striking: Two-thirds said they want to marry or live with a partner. Those who did not have children overwhelmingly wanted them. Yet about a quarter of those aged 25 to 39 said they wanted a partner, but were single and not dating — a status reported more by men than women. More than half said the biggest barriers to a durable relationship were economic constraints. Young people want partnership and parenthood, but questioned achieving the “emotional and financial” stability needed for a shared life.

The Nordic region — consisting of five states and three territories — is viewed as a good place to have children thanks to generous parental leave and subsidized childcare. Yet fertility rates have fallen by up to third since 2010, against 12 percent across the EU. The Polish sociologist Anna Gromada wrote that despite her country’s economic success, its fertility rate was 1.05. While the state transfers cash worth 10 percent of the median wage for every child born each month, Poland’s population is shrinking. Gromada argues that people are not just deciding against children; many never form lasting relationships in which the question arises. Almost half of under-30s are single. Cash paid after a family exists cannot create the togetherness needed for a family in the first place.

The world is not running out of people. The UN expects today’s 8.2 billion people to become 10.3 billion by the mid-2080s. What is emerging is a demographic divide between ageing, shrinking rich societies and population growth in poorer ones. Getting richer seems to mean lower fertility. The baby bust might indicate a wealthy country’s failure to reproduce itself socially as well as biologically. People ask not only whether they can afford children, but whether they fit in, can trust each other and believe in a future. This loss of confident belonging poses questions that politics across the rich world has yet to tackle.