Fertility and Public Policy: How to Reverse the Trend of Declining Birth Rates (CESifo Seminar Series)

Experts discuss the appropriateness and effectiveness using public policy to influence fertility decisions. In 2050, world population growth is predicted to come almost to a halt. Shortly thereafter it may well start to shrink. A major reason behind this shift is the fertility decline that has taken place in many developed countries. In this book, experts discuss the appropriateness and effectiveness of using public policy to influence fertility decisions. Contributors discuss the general feasibility of public interventions in the area of fertility, analyze fertility patterns and policy design in such countries as Japan, South Korea, China, Sweden, and France, and offer theoretical analyses of parental fertility choices that provide an overview of a broad array of child-related policy instruments in a number of OECD and EU countries. The chapters show that it is difficult to gauge the effectiveness of such policy interventions as child-care subsidies, support for women's labor-force participation, and tax incentives. Data are often incomplete, causal relations unproved, and the role of social norms and culture difficult to account for. Investigating reasons for the decline in fertility more closely will require further study. This volume offers the latest work on this increasingly important subject. This collection of essays offers new perspectives on the Industrial Revolution as a global phenomenon. The fifteen contributors go beyond the long-standing view of industrialization as a linear process marked by discrete stages. Instead, they examine a lengthy and creative period in the history of industrialization, 1750 to 1914, reassessing the nature of and explanations for England's industrial primacy and comparing significant industrial developments in countries ranging from China to Brazil. Each chapter explores a distinctive national production ecology, a complex blend of natural resources, demographic pressures, cultural impulses, technological assets, and commercial practices. At the same time, the chapters also reveal the portability of skilled workers and the permeability of political borders The Industrial Revolution Comes To Life In Discussions Of British Eagerness For Stylish, Middle-class Products; The Enlightenment's Contribution To European Industrial Growth; Early America's Incremental (rather Than Revolutionary) Industrialization; The Complex Connections Between Czarist And Stalinist Periods Of Industrial Change In Russia; Japan's Late And Rapid Turn To Mechanized Production; And Brazil's Industrial-financial Boom. By Exploring Unique National Patterns Of Industrialization As Well As Reciprocal Exchanges And Furtive Borrowing Among These States, The Book Refreshes The Discussion Of Early Industrial Transformations And Raises Issues Still Relevant In Today's Era Of Globalization. --book Jacket. Cover Contents Series Foreword Acknowledgments Contributors 1 Fertility and Public Policy 2 The Economics of the Family and Its Policy Implications 3 Low Fertility and Population Aging in Germany and Japan 4 Effects of Public Policies and Labor Market on the Fertility of Japanese Women 5 On the Persistence of Low Birth Rates in Japan 6 An Evaluation of a Pronatal Subsidy in Korea 7 Fertility Transition and Its Socioeconomic Impacts in China 8 Fertility and Social Policy 9 Family Policies and Fertility in Sweden 10 Does Fertility Respond to Work and Family-life Reconciliation Policies in France? 11 Given That People Live Longer, Why Should We Worry That Fewer Are Born? Index Here, experts discuss the appropriateness and effectiveness using public policy to influence fertility decisions. The chapters show that it is difficult to gauge the effectiveness of policy interventions such as child-care subsidies, support for women's labour-force participation, and tax incentives