Will we Witness an Upturn in European Fertility in the Near Future?

Abstract

Fertility in many European countries is not only low, but very low, and in some even lowest low. What fertility levels are going to prevail in the near future? Firstly, some indicators of the “fertility climate” are presented. The study shows that a country’s actual level of fertility correlates to people’s attitudes on how fertility should be dealt with on a societal level. Secondly, levels of expected fertility, so-called “hypothetical completed fertility” (HCF), are calculated on the basis of the information on individually-expressed intentions in the IPPAS database. The structure of the HCF indicator is analysed, together with its interrelation with the “value-of-children” indicator. Multinomial regression is performed to find the net effects of factors which we regard as relevant to expected fertility. Finally, we will speculate on the future of European fertility and on the framework within which it operates.