When is fertility too low or too high? Population policy preferences of demographers around the world

Figures & data

Figure 1 Government population policies with respect to fertility in different regions of the world, selected years 1976–2015

Source: UN, World Population Policies database, https://esa.un.org/PopPolicy/about_database.aspx.

Figure 2 TFR distribution for all countries in the world as registered by the UN, 1950–55 and 2010–15

Source: UN (2017), N = 200 countries.

Table 1 Description of variables and descriptive statistics

Variables	Description	Mean	Standard deviation
Dependent variables
Intervention in low-fertility regimes	When fertility is below the replacement level, at what level of the fertility rate (TFR) do you think a government should take measures in order to stimulate fertility? Never (= 0) or one of six TFR levels (= 1)	0.84	0.37
Intervention in high-fertility regimes	When fertility is above the replacement level, at what level of the fertility rate (TFR) level do you think a government should take measures in order to reduce fertility? Never (= 0) or one of six TFR levels (= 1)	0.89	0.32
TFR levels of intervention in low-fertility regimes	For those that prefer intervention, the threshold level is measured by the options (1.8; 1.6; 1.4; 1.2; 1.0; 0.8 or lower = 0.8)	1.44	0.32
TFR levels of intervention in high-fertility regimes	For those that prefer intervention, the threshold level is measured by the options (2.5; 3.0; 3.5; 4.0; 4.5; 5.0 or higher = 5.0)	3.29	0.78
Explanatory variables
Net reproduction rate	Net reproduction rate in country of residence as reported for 2005–10 (UN 2017)	1.11	0.41
Political orientation	How would you place your views on a scale from left (= 1) to right (= 5)?	2.53	0.98
View on carrying capacity	Agreement with statement ‘The current size of the world population exceeds the carrying capacity of the earth’ (1 = fully disagree to 5 = fully agree)	2.80	1.30
View on population decline	Agreement with statement ‘Population decline will decrease the rate of economic growth’ (1 = fully disagree to 5 = fully agree)	2.40	1.04
Sex	Male (= 0), Female (= 1)	0.36	0.48
Age	Years	48.21	14.08
Language	Language used in questionnaire (English = 0; French = 1)	0.14	0.35
Work environment	Academic (university or research institute = 0), Policy-oriented (government agency, NGO, or private sector = 1)	0.20	0.40
Expert-level knowledge on fertility and family planning	Self-rated knowledge on fertility, reproductive health, and family planning (1 = low; 2 = medium; 3 = high)	2.38	0.67

Note: N = 758.

Source: Authors’ own worldwide survey of demographers in 2009.

Table 2 Population policy preferences of demographers for intervention in high- and low-fertility regimes

	Fertility threshold level for intervention in low-fertility regime						Never intervene
	1.8	1.6	1.4	1.2	1.0	0.8 or lower
Percentage distribution	26.0	14.2	16.9	10.6	10.7	5.6	16.0
Cumulative distribution	26.0	40.2	57.1	67.7	78.4	84.0	100.0
	Fertility threshold level for intervention in high-fertility regime						Never intervene
	2.5	3.0	3.5	4.0	4.5	5.0 or higher
Percentage distribution	29.1	21.7	12.4	15.1	3.1	7.4	11.2
Cumulative distribution	29.1	50.8	63.2	78.3	81.4	88.8	100.0

Notes: Question posed for low-fertility regimes: ‘When fertility is below the replacement level, at what level of the fertility rate (TFR) do you think that a government should take measures in order to stimulate fertility?’ The cumulative percentages should be interpreted as follows: at TFR 1.8 (just below the replacement level of 2.1), 26 per cent of respondents think governments should intervene to increase the TFR; 40 per cent support intervention at TFR 1.6, etc.; and 84.0 per cent support intervention at TFR 0.8 or lower. Hence 16.0 per cent are in favour of non-intervention whatever the below-replacement TFR level is. The corresponding question for the high-fertility regime was: ‘When fertility is above the replacement level, at what level of the fertility rate (TFR) do you think that a government should take measures in order to reduce fertility?’

Source: As for Table 1.

Table 3 Explanation of preference to intervene in fertility level and, for those who prefer to intervene, the TFR level threshold among demographers, worldwide

	Policies for low-fertility regimes				Policies for high-fertility regimes
	Intervention (no = 0, yes = 1) (Model 1)		TFR level of intervention (Model 2)		Intervention (no = 0, yes = 1) (Model 3)		TFR level of intervention (Model 4)
	Coef.	s.e.	Coef.	s.e.	Coef.	s.e.	Coef.	s.e.
Country-level variable
Net reproduction rate in country of residence	0.45	0.37	−0.16	0.21	0.88**	0.43	0.67***	0.27
Individual perceptions and orientation
Carrying capacity of the world	0.05	0.09	−0.16***	0.06	0.68***	0.13	−0.28***	0.06
Negative consequences of population decline	−0.01	0.11	0.15**	0.07	−0.03	0.13	0.04	0.07
Political orientation	0.51***	0.13	0.05	0.08	0.30**	0.15	0.05	0.08
Control variables
Sex (male = 0)	−0.06	0.23	−0.31*	0.16	−0.41	0.27	0.29*	0.16
Age (years)	−0.02*	0.01	−0.00	0.01	−0.00	0.01	−0.02***	0.01
Work environment (academic = 0)	−0.02	0.27	−0.34*	0.18	0.39	0.36	−0.11	0.18
French (English = 0)	0.21	0.37	0.61***	0.24	−0.27	0.37	0.33	0.27
Knowledge of fertility	−0.05	0.16	0.29***	0.11	0.12	0.19	0.20*	0.12
Constant	0.95	0.93	–	–	−0.18	1.08	–	–
Random effects parameter:
Country	0.39	0.23	0.06	0.08	0.37	0.27	0.53	0.19
N	758		637		752		668
Log-likelihood	−305.8		−1,054.0		−223.8		−1,015.7

*p < 0.1; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01.

Notes: Models 1 and 3 are estimated by means of multilevel logit analysis; Models 2 and 4 are estimated by means of multilevel ordered logit analysis; estimated cut-off points are not shown in the table. Coef. refers to the coefficient and s.e. is the standard error.

Source: As for Table 1.

Table 4 Predicted probabilities of threshold fertility intervention levels for high-fertility regimes

	Distribution of threshold levels TFR
	2.5	3.0	3.5	4.0	4.5	5.0 or higher	Total
Sample average^1	0.32	0.25	0.14	0.18	0.03	0.08	1.00
Concerns about carrying capacity of the earth
Low	0.15	0.22	0.18	0.27	0.05	0.12	1.00
High	0.34	0.29	0.15	0.15	0.02	0.04	1.00
Net reproduction rate in country of residence
0.8	0.27	0.28	0.17	0.19	0.03	0.06	1.00
1.5	0.18	0.24	0.18	0.25	0.05	0.10	1.00

¹These are the sample probabilities underlying the model in column (4) of Table 3.

Source: As for Table 1.

UN. 2017. World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision. New York: United Nations.

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