The Fertility Drop Puzzle

Esping-Andersen will compare fertility change 2000-2020 in order to understand, firstly, why a sudden and sharp drop in births occurred in so many countries in the 2010-20 decade, and why no recovery occurred. He highlights the opposite trend in another group. Postponement and the fall in fertility is primarily centered on first births, and it is skewed towards youth, and lower-educated women and men. It appears that the less educated are most likely to postpone and thereby converge with higher-educated age-wise. Esping-Andersen moves from a macro comparison to micro-data for select countries to identify the possible drivers of declining fertility with no recovery and rising fertility. He tests the effect of housing prices, employment precarity, income, unemployment, and also of 'postmodern values'.