Books or babies?

Europe, or at least much of it, is failing to reproduce, as Mr Mark Steyn points out. But why? Although I agree with Mr Steyn, Mr George Weigel and Chad of Cacoethes Scribendi in his comment that the deeper cause is a civilisational crisis, what are the individual, personal reasons that lead a woman or a couple not to have children. After all, calling it is a crisis of confidence in the basis of Western civilisation doesn't offer any immediately obvious solutions or even suggestions to ameliorate the situation.

Well, how about this for a start: education. Mr Tony Blair came to power proclaiming a mantra of 'Education, education, education' and all the industrialised countries are united in believing that they require better educated populations. But of course, this takes time, and believe me, in continental Europe it can take an unbelievably long time to complete a degree. So as the number of women entering further education increases, most will want to put off having children until after they have finished their studies. However, the twenties are, I believe, when a woman is most fertile. Thus it's likely that a proportion of women, once they have finally completed their education, may find it more difficult to conceive than if they had started a family earlier. And, of course, starting a family later means that there is less time in which to produce children before the effects of ageing start kicking in.

So an immediate suggestion, if this idea is correct, would be to try and reduce the length of time it takes to complete further education (which might also reduce the degree of debt students carry into their working life, possibly also making women more likely to start families earlier).

A more radical idea is to question whether the notion that the widening of university education (in Britain the government aims for 50% of the population to go to university) is in itself necessarily a good thing.

Comments

[Bekah S.]

Interesting idea. I think you've cut it short, though. What is the purpose of that education, and what is the immediate result of it? The purpose is higher earning potential, or increased advancement in a career, and the immediate result is usually a pile of debt. Both of these directly point to a significant period of time in the career field, to make that education worth having. Children significantly disrupt a woman's potential in a career.

So, if a woman decides to educate through a Bachelors, graduates at 22-23, works several years before having children, she'll be pushing close to 28 with the first child. Add additional schooling and probably additional work years to justify it, for every additional degree.

Now, here's the kicker. How do these women prevent pregnancy all this time? Usually not through abstinence or NFP. Usually, through some hormonal form of contraception, which after a decade or so of use can significantly impair a woman's fertility, in addition to the waning fertility due to age.

[Albertus Minimus]

Good point, Bekah. And I'm currently searching through statistical tables, and one interesting finding is that the average age for a woman's first marriage in the US is 25, the lowest of any of the industrialised countries, whereas Sweden tops the list at 30. So that is at least suggestive for one of the reasons for this drop in fertility.

[Boeciana]

'What is the purpose of that education, and what is the immediate result of it? The purpose is higher earning potential, or increased advancement in a career, and the immediate result is usually a pile of debt.'

Or rather, surely, this is the situation which has arisen in Britain at some point in, what, the last 40 years? The purpose of education, however, is not really to further one's career. It is to enable one to seek truth. One of the big problems at the moment is the hordes of teenagers going to university Because That's What You Do, and because they think they won't get a job otherwise (whether accurately or not, I don't know), when they don't care in the slightest about the discipline they're studying or about learning to think honestly and critically. It seems to me that the government's priority should be, not to shuffle more and more kids into higher education (all the while dragging down quality as universities are forced to compensate for schools' failings), but to provide resources so that people can go to university when they really want to and are able to, at whatever stage of life.

The relevance of this to fertility is, I think, this: rather than shortening degree courses, if it were more possible to pursue a sensible career without higher education, perhaps people would be better able to get married younger and have children more healthily. Then women could study later if they wanted to. Mind you, this may be impractical given that scholarship does not seem to be very easily combined with children; and it will probably leave some folk realising at some point that they would be very well suited to study, but they simply can't, owing to family responsibilities. Hmm.