The Policy on Birth Rates and Families With Children: Current Approaches and Assessment of Their Effectiveness

What the paper says

From 2020 and 2021 to the present, the total fertility rate has resumed its decline in many developed countries, even those with the most developed support for families with children. This is due in part to economic crises (stagnant incomes against a backdrop of rising consumer standards and expectations, a global decline in housing affordability, etc.) and also to socio-cultural shifts (the effects of social media, the spread of “intensive parenting,” the increasing difficulty of balancing parenthood and employment while maternal duties are mostly undiminished, etc.). Most developed and many developing countries pursue demographic policies, which may be explicitly codified in legislation or implemented through separate measures. The authors examine this common fertility support with an emphasis on its transformation over the past decade and then assess the effectiveness of such measures based on a pool of international studies. The article also addresses what directions these policies may take in the new phase of sustained decline in fertility. A review of studies on fertility support measures indicates that a combined approach encompassing multiple areas has the greatest effect. However, policy consistency and a country's economic, social, historical, and cultural context are extremely important. Support measures have a greater impact on the timing of births than on the final number of children. One reason for this is the rapidly changing social and economic conditions, as well as significant shifts in cultural values, that are occurring during the lifetime of the current generation.