mardi 6 octobre 2020

Why are fertility trends so divergent?

I wasn't sure exactly where to put this topic since it is an economic issue and a social issue as well as a scientific question, but I decided to put it here.

This is the article that provoked my thought:

Singapore offers 'pandemic baby bonus' to boost births

Quote:

Singapore is offering a one-off payment to encourage people to have babies during the coronavirus pandemic.

The worry is that citizens are putting off parenthood as they struggle with financial stress and job layoffs.

Details of the amount that could be paid have yet to be released. It is in addition to several hefty baby bonuses offered by the government.

Singapore has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, which it has struggled to boost for decades.

It is in stark contrast to some of its neighbours such as Indonesia and the Philippines, which are facing the prospect of a massive spike in pregnancies from their coronavirus lockdowns.
The same circumstance (the pandemic) seems to be producing opposite effects in different countries. I don't really know how well this has actually been established empirically though. Singapore already offered a "baby bonus" to its citizens to encourage them to have more children, although to my eyes, it's not really large enough to be much of an incentive to a middle-class family, unless they wanted to have kids anyway.
Quote:

Singapore's current baby bonus system provides eligible parents up to S$10,000 ($7,330, £5,644) in benefits.
Obviously this is not nearly enough to pay for the cost of raising a child. It might just cover the cost of the pregnancy and delivery, assuming that everything goes smoothly.
What It Costs to Raise a Child in 2019 (In Singapore)
The cost of the pregnancy is listed as $8,000 (presumably in Singapore dollars) but it's $60,000 from birth to age 2. So the standard baby bonus doesn't begin to cover it. The grand total through college is "at least $670,000". So the the standard baby bonus is less than 2% of that figure.

Quote:

Singapore's fertility rate touched an eight-year low in 2018, according to government data, at a rate of 1.14 births per woman.

Many Asian countries face a similar issue of falling fertility rates, which could worsen during the pandemic downturn.
Then the article goes on to mention the Philippines:
Quote:

But some of Singapore's neighbours face the opposite problem.

In the Philippines, unintended pregnancies are forecast to spike by almost half to 2.6 million if Covid 19-induced movement restrictions remain until year-end, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

"These numbers are an epidemic in itself," Aimee Santos, a spokesperson for UN agency in the Philippines, said last month.

The Philippines has the second-highest population in South East Asia at 108.4 million. It has one of the region's worst virus outbreaks with more than 307,000 infections.
Does Catholicism explain the discrepancy? Or is it simply the lower level of economic development?
I underlined the word "unintended" in the above because it seems to be a thing that rarely happens in countries like Singapore (or Japan, where I live).
There are a few, to be sure, but not enough to make a large dent in the below-replacement-level fertility rate. Generally most pregnancies in these countries are planned pregnancies.


via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/3d2pjN2

Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire