Family policies in developed countries: a ‘fertility-booster’ with side-effects

Abstract

This paper describes recent fertility trends in European and/or Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] countries and surveys the effects of family-friendly policies on fertility. Although these policies do seem to have an impact on fertility, their magnitude is limited. Financial benefits, whether conditional on employment status or not, have an undeniable impact on the timing of births, but their impact on the cohort overall fertility is less certain. Conversely, policies that facilitate the work-family balance seem to have a strong influence on the decision to have children or not. However, they do not always help reduce differences in behaviour between social classes. The impact of family-friendly policies is probably underestimated because of the difficulty of assessing their coherence and long-term effects. Moreover, policies do not always have proven effect because their impact is often temporary in the absence of a complete set of support that accompany families all along the childhood. The effectiveness of policies also depends on their permanency and the stability of economic environment. Stable policies can mitigate the impact of economic recession on fertility as well.

Cet article décrit les tendances récentes de la fécondité dans les pays industrialisés et synthétise un ensemble de recherches analysant les effets des politiques aidant les familles sur la fécondité. Bien que ces politiques semble influencer la fécondité, la magnitude des effets est limitée. Les transfers financiers, qu'ils soient conditionnels au statut au regard de l'emploi ou non, ont un effet indéniable sur le calendrier des naissances, mais leur effet sur le niveau de fécondité attaint en fin de vie procréative est plus incertain. En revanche, les politiques qui facilitent la conciliation entre travail et vie familiale semblent avoir un impact important sur la decision d'avoir des enfants. Néanmoins, ces politiques n'aident pas toujours à réduire les différences de comportements entre groupes sociaux. L'impact de ces politiques est néanmoins vraisemblablement sous-estimé en raison de la difficulté à évaluer leur cohérence et effets de long terme. En outre, les politiques n'ont pas toujours d'effets avérés car leur impact est souvent de courte période en l'absence d'aides accompagnant les familles tout au long de l'enfance. L'efficacité des politiques dépens de leur permanence dans le temps et de la stabilité de l'environnement économique. Des politiques qui perdurent peuvent amortir les effets d'une recession économique sur la fécondité.

Keywords:

• family policies
• fertility
• work-life balance

Mots-clés:

• politiques familiale
• fécondité
• conciliation travail et vie familiale

Acknowledgements

Willem Adema and the two anonymous referees are gratefully thanked for their valuable comments. The views expressed in this paper cannot be attributed to the OECD or its Member Countries: as with any remaining errors, they are the responsibility of the authors alone. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement no. 217173 (REPRO).

Notes

1. The total fertility rate is highly sensitive to the timing of births: children born later in the life cycle induce a decline in the TFR, and final (cohort) fertility will be underestimated. Some authors have therefore proposed TFR estimates adjusted for timing variations (Bongaarts & Feeney, 1998; Goldstein et al., 2009; and Kohler & Philipov, 2001). The value of the indicator, therefore, depends on the timing variations used as a benchmark for the adjustment.

2. It is, however, not easy to disentangle the impact of the baby bonus from those of the other measures that were introduced during the same period including family tax benefit and a new childcare rebate.

3. Their results are unstable and highly dependent on empirical estimation. In the first version of their study, these authors found that financial incentives had the biggest impact on the birth of a first child and little impact on subsequent fertility (Laroque & Salanié, 2005). In their more recent research, they find that the first and third births are the most sensitive to financial incentives (Laroque & Salanié, 2008).

4. A point made by Castles is that policies are often introduced because fertility has dropped to a very low level. If a cross-sectional analysis is applied, low fertility will be associated with countries that have recently introduced some policy initiative even though, in the longer term, the policy may be effective. Cross-sectional correlations will be misleading in such cases.

5. Preliminary data on births in 2009 confirm that many countries recorded rising numbers of births and fertility rates after 2000 first experienced stagnation or a slight decline in total births in 2009. The Eurostat projection as of late January 2010 envisions a decline in total births in 2009 by 0.1% for the European Union as compared with a rise of 2.7% in 2008.