Women worldwide are having fewer babies, and drastic policy interventions are needed to avoid a growing crisis, reports Bloomberg.
The news outlet conducted a deep dive on the issue, analyzing fertility data for 200 countries, and found that women had an average of 2.4 live births in 2017, down from five in the 1960s.
Fewer babies means a decline in the global population, which is vital for the world economy.
The Bloomberg report suggests governments need to take steps to reverse the current trend, including through state-sponsored benefits, family-planning edicts or discrimination protections or “else find their own path to sustainable economic growth with ever fewer native-born workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs.”
Loosening immigration policies to make up for low birthrates, especially in the United States and parts of Western Europe, could also make a difference.
Bloomberg conducted case studies on four countries, including France, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and China.
Chinese women had an average of 1.7 live births in 2017 due to more women working and limits on family size. Nigeria has high fertility rates – 5.5 in 2017 – but feeding, educating and employing the population could prove difficult.
In Saudi Arabia, the rate has declined tremendously – from 7.2 in 1960 to 2.4 in 2017 – due to contraceptives, economic growth and changing nature of the household, per Al Jazeera.
"[This is] primarily because women are getting more educated in the Arab world and they are seeking a different future and aspirations for themselves," Marcia Inhorn, the author of a 2018 study from Yale University that explained the unprecedented decline in fertility rates in the Arab world, told Al Jazeera.
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