«The Faroese fertility story may be about who chooses to stay as well as culture and policy.»
Culture seems to me to matter rather little: many countries with a "culture" of having many children switched to having almost no children in 20-30 years.
My guess is that women decide how many children to have and it is almost all about how much each cares about having a comfortable retirement and how profitable are sons as pension assets (secondarily about how sexually attractive are the potential fathers) and that in turn depends on how strong their reproductive instinct is and how cost-effective are alternative pension assets.
Every woman seems to evaluate the cost/benefits of having sons as a living pension versus having a career and a financial pension (private or from the state). It is not about education or affordability in themselves that drive the choice:
* Education as a rule is just a proxy for higher ability to have a financial pension instead of sons.
* Affordability means little by itself as in many countries natality rates have fallen with higher women incomes that is more affordability for spending on having children.
However at some point affordability does matter: when many women already have an entitlement to a financial pension and are affluent then having children is no longer a necessary expense to build pension assets but it can become an option and after all many women have some reproductive instinct, and whether they take the option depends on how expensive it is compared to other options like better holidays, a house renovations, a car upgrade, etc., as having children becomes an "experience", a "hobby".
Some time ago "The Economist" translated this into the language of economics and observed that in countries where women can count on financial pensions for their retirement children are no longer a necessary investment but an optional durable consumption good.
«after all many women have some reproductive instinct»
But that instinct has become rather weak over time because it has been overridden: when many women deliberately invest in having children as pension assets then the reproductive instinct is no longer subject to selection pressure as women with low reproductive instinct have will as many children as women with high reproductive instinct.
Which means that in a few generations western Europe and other low natality areas will have a huge natality boom: as currently having sons as pension assets is no longer necessary then women with a with a low reproductive instinct will make themselves extinct and those with a high reproductive instinct will outbreed them.
«The Faroese fertility story may be about who chooses to stay as well as culture and policy.»
Culture seems to me to matter rather little: many countries with a "culture" of having many children switched to having almost no children in 20-30 years.
My guess is that women decide how many children to have and it is almost all about how much each cares about having a comfortable retirement and how profitable are sons as pension assets (secondarily about how sexually attractive are the potential fathers) and that in turn depends on how strong their reproductive instinct is and how cost-effective are alternative pension assets.
Every woman seems to evaluate the cost/benefits of having sons as a living pension versus having a career and a financial pension (private or from the state). It is not about education or affordability in themselves that drive the choice:
* Education as a rule is just a proxy for higher ability to have a financial pension instead of sons.
* Affordability means little by itself as in many countries natality rates have fallen with higher women incomes that is more affordability for spending on having children.
However at some point affordability does matter: when many women already have an entitlement to a financial pension and are affluent then having children is no longer a necessary expense to build pension assets but it can become an option and after all many women have some reproductive instinct, and whether they take the option depends on how expensive it is compared to other options like better holidays, a house renovations, a car upgrade, etc., as having children becomes an "experience", a "hobby".
Some time ago "The Economist" translated this into the language of economics and observed that in countries where women can count on financial pensions for their retirement children are no longer a necessary investment but an optional durable consumption good.
«after all many women have some reproductive instinct»
But that instinct has become rather weak over time because it has been overridden: when many women deliberately invest in having children as pension assets then the reproductive instinct is no longer subject to selection pressure as women with low reproductive instinct have will as many children as women with high reproductive instinct.
Which means that in a few generations western Europe and other low natality areas will have a huge natality boom: as currently having sons as pension assets is no longer necessary then women with a with a low reproductive instinct will make themselves extinct and those with a high reproductive instinct will outbreed them.
Very interesting! Do you have any idea why the TFR dropped off after 2020?