Whither the Child?
Causes, Consequences & Responses to Low Fertility
Barcelona, Spain | March 12-13, 2010
Meeting Summary:
This STI Experts Meeting, led by Professor Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia, sought to explore the cultural sources of declining fertility and its consequences for children, adults and the societies they live in. In the last four decades, fertility has fallen dramatically in the developed world and much of the developing world. Indeed, in most of the developed world, fertility stands well below the replacement level of 2.1. The economic, technological, and social sources of falling fertility rates are well understood. The meeting addressed the less well understood sources of falling fertility rates by looking at how cultural changes—in views toward children, popular conceptions of the good life, and beliefs about gender roles—have played a central role in fertility declines the world over. This meeting also explored the consequences of falling fertility rates for children, adults, and civil society, as well as cultural and policy responses to low fertility.
Principal Inquiries:• Is fertility decline a consequence of the loss of religious faith or hope for the future in modern societies?
• Paradoxically, are more traditional ways of understanding family and gender playing a role in fueling contemporary low fertility? What do the experiences of Scandinavia and Southern Europe tell us about such a view?
• What are the social and emotional consequences of being an “only child” for children?
• How do children influence the emotional and spiritual lives of adults?
• Does parenthood influence patterns of social and civic engagement on the part of adults?
• Is low fertility linked to religious polarization, where the forces of secularism and religious orthodoxy are both on the rise?
• If low fertility—or at least the “lowest low fertility” found in much of Europe and East Asia—can be viewed as a social problem, what are the best cultural and policy responses to low fertility?
Speakers:
•
Alícia Adserà – Princeton University
Fertility, Feminism, and Faith: How is Secularism Influencing Fertility in the West?
• David Eggebeen – Pennsylvania State University
The Social and Civic Consequences of Parenthood for Adults
•
Catherine Hakim – London School of Economics
What Do Women Really Want? Crafting Family Policies for All Women•
Eric Kaufmann – Birkbeck University of London
Sacralization by Stealth?: The Religious Consequences of Low Fertility in Europe•
Hans-Peter Kohler – University of Pennsylvania
Do Children Bring Happiness and Purpose to Life?
• Ron Lesthaeghe - Royal Belgian Academy of Sciences
The Unfolding Story of the Second Demographic Transition•
Wolfgang Lutz – Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
The Future of Fertility
•
Elizabeth Marquardt – Institute for American Values
Gift or Commodity: How Ought We to Think About Children?
•
Joseph Potter – University of Texas
How Pentecostalism and Popular Culture are Driving Brazilian Fertility Down
•
Leonard Schoppa – University of Virginia
Feminism as the New Natalism•
Susan Short – Brown University
Growing Up in China After the One-Child Policy
•
Bradford Wilcox – University of Virginia
Before, During, and After the Baby Carriage: The Division of Labor and Wives’ Contemporary Marital SatisfactionDiscussants: •
Christopher Caldwell – The Weekly Standard
•
Phil Longman – New America Foundation
•
Mariano Martínez-Aedo – Institute for Family Policies - Spain
•
Carolyn Moynihan – Mercator Net
•
David Quinn – The Iona Institute
•
Reihan Salam – New America Foundation | Forbes
Read
abstracts of the presented papers.
This public conference was open to a small audience.
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