Decline in birth rate: implications

What about family sizes declining?

• Smaller due to parents having fewer children compared to the past where large families were the norm.

• Total fertility rates indicate women are having fewer children today.

• In 2013, 47% of nuclear families had only one child; only 14% had two children.

• Ethnic-minority families tend to be larger (partly due to parents being younger and more fertile).

• Significant decline in number of women aged 24 or under who’re having children, whereas there’s been a major increase in older mothers aged 40 or over.

What is said about Asian families?

• Westwood and Bhachu (1988) observe the decline in the birth rate doesn’t apply to Asian families.

• On average, Asian families have 4.6 children compared to the 2.4 children of the ‘conventional’ nuclear family in the 1980s.

What about the increase in family diversity?

• Voluntary childlessness:

  • There’s been an increase in the number of women choosing not to have children.

  • Family Policy Studies Centre found that in 2000, one in five women aged 40 hadn’t had children compared with one in ten in 1980.

  • Hakim (2010) argues that voluntary childlessness is a relatively new lifestyle choice, which could’ve been brought about by the contraception revolution.

• Dual-career family:

  • There’s been a decline in full-time mothering and a rise in the number of dual-career families in which couples combine jobs and family life.

  • About 60% of nuclear families are dual-career families.

What are motivations for wanting to be ‘child free’?

• Gillespie (2003) identifies two potential factors for voluntary childlessness.

• Some women are attracted by the pull of being child-free, especially the increased freedom and better relationships with partners that it may afford.

• A number of studies indicate couples are happier without children.

• May be a ‘push’ factor where some see parenting as conflicting with their careers pr leisure interests.

• These women tend to express little interest in having children.

What is positively said?

• Liberal feminists generally support the decline because it allows women more freedom over their lives – to pursue, e.g, a career.

• Helen Wilkinson (1994) argues there’s been a ground-breaking shift in female expectations since the 1960s that have led to a ‘genderquake’ in attitudes.

• Women no longer automatically consider motherhood as an obligation compared with previous generations.

What is negatively said?

• New Right would argue the decline, caused by female employment and the availability of contraception, has a negative impact on our society.

• These changes are viewed as partly to blame for the demise of the traditional nuclear family that’s triggering an alleged moral decline.