Aligning Population Policies with Low Fertility

Low fertility has become almost universal in high-income countries and is increasingly common among middle- and low-income countries. Consequently, population structures are getting older and, if fertility rates remain low, population sizes will eventually begin to decline at the national and even global level. This comes as no surprise to population scientists who have been rigorously examining the causes and consequences of fertility change for more than three-quarters of a century. Yet, reports of these trends are causing growing concern, even alarm, among politicians and the general public, highlighting the need for ongoing IUSSP leadership this important topic. In many countries these anxieties are being enflamed by exaggerated, and often deliberately misleading, claims about the implications of low and declining fertility. Pronatalist activists claim that low birth rates pose existential threats to specific nations or even humanity as a whole or that they will have disastrous economic consequences. Some governments have used this rhetoric to justify adopting coercive and discriminatory pronatalist policies that undermine reproductive health care, reinforce restrictive gender and family norms, and fuel anti-immigration and racist sentiments. Other governments are looking for new strategies to address their population’s needs in this era of low fertility, but they are lacking better information and better alternatives.

The goal of this IUSSP panel is to create a coordinated and collaborative effort to counter the harmful impacts of pronatalism and, more importantly, offer an effective alternative approach that reflects the fields’ extensive expertise and is aligned with the principles of the global population community to protect human rights, to promote population health and wellbeing, including sexual and reproductive, psychological, and child health, to reduce poverty, and to foster gender and racial equality.