Hellstrand Julia, Nisén Jessica, Myrskylä Mikko
Helsinki Institute for Demography and Population Health, Helsinki, Finland.
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
Eur Sociol Rev. 2024 Jan 31;40(5):754-771. doi: 10.1093/esr/jcae001. eCollection 2024 Oct.
Fertility declined sharply and unexpectedly in Finland in the 2010s across educational levels. Using Finnish register data, we calculated total fertility rates (TFRs) and the proportion of women expected to have a first birth in 2010-2019 for 153 educational groups-reflecting field and level-and estimated how the characteristics of a group predicted its decline. As the educational field predicts factors related to economic uncertainty, heterogeneity in fertility decline across fields could shed light on the role of economic uncertainty behind the recent fertility decline. In general, women with the highest initial fertility levels (health, welfare, and education) and women in agriculture experienced weaker fertility declines (around -20% or less), while women with the lowest initial levels (ICT, arts and humanities) experienced stronger declines (around -40% or more). The extent of the fertility decline increased with higher unemployment and lower income levels in the field and with a lower share employed in the public sector. These uncertainty measures together explained one-fourth of the decline in TFR and two-fifths of the decline in first births. The results imply that fertility declined across all groups, but those with stable job prospects escaped very strong declines. Objective economic uncertainty is one aspect that mattered for the recent fertility decline.
在21世纪10年代，芬兰各教育水平的生育率均急剧且出人意料地下降。利用芬兰的登记数据，我们计算了153个教育组（反映学科领域和水平）在2010年至2019年的总和生育率（TFR）以及预计生育第一胎的女性比例，并估计了一个组的特征如何预测其生育率下降情况。由于学科领域可预测与经济不确定性相关的因素，各领域生育率下降的异质性可能有助于揭示近期生育率下降背后经济不确定性的作用。总体而言，初始生育率最高的女性群体（健康、福利和教育领域）以及农业领域的女性生育率下降幅度较小（约-20%或更低），而初始生育率最低的女性群体（信息通信技术、艺术和人文领域）生育率下降幅度较大（约-40%或更高）。生育率下降的程度随着该领域失业率上升、收入水平降低以及公共部门就业比例降低而增加。这些不确定性指标共同解释了总和生育率下降的四分之一以及头胎生育下降的五分之二。结果表明，所有群体的生育率都下降了，但那些就业前景稳定的群体生育率下降幅度不大。客观经济不确定性是近期生育率下降的一个重要因素。
