The baby shortage

In Barbados, as in much of Western society, the birth rate is in a state of the decline. This raises some truly legitimate concerns. The Economist Magazine of May 25, 2024 notes that ageing and shrinking societies could lose dynamism and military might. They also face a budgetary crisis as taxpayers struggle to finance increasing pension demands and rising health and welfare costs for a large and increasingly geriatric population. One is not sure about the lost of dynamism, but budgetary and social spending concerns are very germane to Barbados.

Governments across the world are seeking ways in which they can arrest the fall. Donald Trump has promised that if he is returned to the White House, he will dish out child bonuses. In France, Emmanuel Macron says he wants to ‘demographically rearm’ his country. In South Korea where the fertility rate is as low as 0.7 the government is contemplating handouts worth $7,000 per newborn baby. There the private sector has taken up the crisis with great and understandable zeal. According to a report first published in the Washington Post and later in one of our local dailies on February 24 2024, the Booyoung Group, a construction company, has awarded a total of $US 5.2 million to its employees for 70 babies born since 2021. South Korea’s biggest car-maker Hyundai last year launched a dedicated task force to boost employee birth rates. The company is reportedly offering up to US$3750 as a payout for each newborn. 

As the Economist points out the concern is a legitimate issue particularly for developed high-income nations. The magazine’s data suggests that as it stands the average female will have just about 1.6 children in her lifetime. Every country except Israel has a fertility rate beneath the replacement level of 2.1 at which rate a population can be considered stable without a policy of sustained immigration. A fertility rate of 1.6 without migration means that each generation will be a quarter smaller than the previous one. The Economist correspondent estimates that at its current birth rate of 0.7 the population of South Korea could fall by as much as 60 per cent by the end of this century. `

The many reasons for the baby shortage have been well studied. The decision to have or not have children is a personal choice, usually that of the woman who must be allowed to determine her own reproductive functions. One reason for the fall-off in the birth rate is that an increasingly significant number of educated professional females are prioritising their careers above raising a family. Girls do not go to university to spend a lifetime baking cookies. Today the educated woman wants to be CEO of her company as much as her brother and they certainly do not smile at the prospect of financial dependence on a man. Besides, an increasing number of bright ambitious females are finding it difficult to find what they consider appropriate mates. Another may be the rising cost of child care, particularly in North America, Canada and the US. The middle class educated woman wants the best pre-natal and post-natal care for herself and child. She also wants the best education in the better schools. These things have attendant costs which keep rising. According to the Economist correspondent, in America the average age at which the ‘educated’ female has her first child has risen from 28 in 2000 to 30 in 2024.

The Economist article which is titled Cash for Kids, contends that ‘baby boosting policies won’t work’. It concluded that ‘economies must adjust to baby busts instead’. This may be true. Firstly, it is costly for even the more wealthy countries to pay parents to have more children. The less rich, burdened by debt and trade deficits even more so. Offers of tax breaks and subsidized child care are expensive even in wealthy states. Similarly, Barbados and much of the region does not have the corporate sector that can underwrite the cost of raising the birth rate as seen in South Korea. The Economist article makes a claim that does not apply to the less developed states in the world and in the region. It stated that: ‘The bulk of the decline in the fertility rate in rich countries is among younger poorer women. One might suggest that certainly in the region it is the younger, poorer, less educated and single female who continues to have four and five children. In fact, this may be a contributing factor in the growth of a persistent underclass struggling to provide for its for children whose life chances remain perilous. It may also be a factor in the emergence of an ostensibly widening income distribution rate in the region. It is unlikely that grants to poorer female will in itself improve the birth rate unless more is done to educate and otherwise improve the condition of life of the working class girl who has missed out on the feminist bourgeois revolution. 

Ralph Jemmott is a respected, retired educator and commentator on social issues.