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Fertility will be determined by the changing ideal family size and the empowerment to reach these targets

    Wolfgang Lutz

Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2020, pp. 63-70, 2020/08/04

Fertility across time and space

doi: 10.1553/populationyearbook2020.deb06


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doi:10.1553/populationyearbook2020.deb06

Abstract

The long-term fertility trends in different parts of the world will matter greatly for sustainable development and future human well-being on this planet. The future paths of fertility and the resulting population growth have also been identified as important factors in efforts to deal with climate change and other environmental risks. Future population growth will essentially depend on two factors: the speed of fertility decline in Africa and the long-term fertility level at the end of demographic transition. In this contribution I argue that for both factors, changes in the reproductive preferences are the key drivers. Moreover, these changes primarily happen in our minds, and are only secondarily influenced by changing economic realities and environmental factors. But before we can realize these preferences, we need to be empowered to do so. Reproductive empowerment, driven especially by rising levels of women’s education, is a key factor allowing women and men to act on their fertility preferences, and shaping fertility trends.

Keywords: Fertility; Fertility decline; Demographic transition; Population growth; Reproductive preferences; Reproductive empowerment

Published Online: 2020/08/04 13:00:00

Object Identifier: 0xc1aa5572 0x003fa8cb

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Rights: © The Author(s), Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2024 This article/book is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that allows the sharing, use and adaptation in any medium, provided that the user gives appropriate credit, provides a link to the license, and indicates if changes were made.