Contemporary Low Fertility: Understanding it and Coping with it

This paper informs about the findings of the seminar on Patterns of Economic Development, Social Change, and Fertility Decline in Comparative Perspective: Analysis and Policy Implications organized by the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Below Replacement Fertility: Causes, Consequences and Policy Responses in collaboration with Fudan University in Shanghai in May 2012. The aim of the seminar was to improve the understanding of the patterns and causes of fertility decline to below replacement level in different settings, and to consider their policy implications. A number of papers dealt with issues of fertility in individual countries, such as South Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Russia and especially China. Moreover, the seminar yielded some unforeseen results demonstrating that “below replacement fertility” can be sufficient to support the wellbeing of contemporary populations. There are numerous mechanisms to achieve this goal. Immigration enlarges the population of reproductive and working age. Higher education enhances the productivity of the labor force and thus its ability to support dependents. Of equal importance is the recognition that modern labor and capital productivity might render contemporary rich countries capable of supporting the dependent age groups with a relatively small proportion of population of working age.