Birth rate
Some (including those of Italy and Malaysia) seek to increase the birth rate with financial incentives or provision of support services to new mothers.
Non-coercive measures such as improved information on birth control and its availability have achieved good results in countries such as Iran and Bangladesh.
In some countries, government policies have focused on reducing birth rates by improving women's rights, sexual and reproductive health.
Demographic transition theory postulates that as a country undergoes economic development and social change its population growth declines, with birth rates serving as an indicator.
High birth rates may contribute to malnutrition and starvation, stress government welfare and family programs, and more importantly store up overpopulation for the future, and increase human damage to other species and habitats, and environmental degradation.
One of the most notorious natalist policies was that in communist Romania in 1967–1990, during the time of communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu, who adopted a very aggressive natalist policy which included outlawing abortion and contraception, routine pregnancy tests for women, taxes on childlessness, and legal discrimination against childless people.
[17] This policy has also been deemed responsible for the common practice of sex-selective abortion which led to an imbalanced sex ratio in the country.
Women of all economic, social, religious and educational persuasions are choosing to have fewer children as they are gaining more control over their own reproductive rights.
Children not needed to plough the fields would be of surplus and require some education, so in turn, families become smaller and women are able to work and have greater ambitions.
In their view, women's job was to produce babies to power the country's labour force, so family planning was vehemently opposed.
The women of Burma opposed this policy, and Peter McDonald of the Australian National University argues that this gave rise to a black market trade in contraceptives, smuggled in from neighbouring Thailand.
During the war, the women of Iran averaged about 8 children each, a ratio the hard-line Islamic President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted to revive.
Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru have all seen significant drops in fertility in the same period, all going from over six to less than three children per woman.
Forty percent of married Brazilian women are choosing to get sterilised after having children, but this may be because it only requires confession on one occasion[citation needed].
However, despite not having any official records, it can be presumed for obvious reasons (only men are allowed to be Catholic priests) that the Holy See has the lowest birth rate of any sovereign state.
The inverse relationship between income and fertility has been termed a demographic-economic "paradox" by the notion that greater means would enable the production of more offspring as suggested by the influential Thomas Malthus.
[34][35] Reasons for large families include tradition, religion, the different roles of men and women, and the cultural desire to have several sons.
Phil Ruthven of the business information firm IBISWorld believes the spike in fertility was more about timing and less about monetary incentives.
[41] In 1994, the total fertility rate was as low as 1.66, but perhaps due to the active family policy of the government in the mid-1990s, it has increased, and maintained an average of 2.0 from 2008 until 2015.
[43] A characteristic of the family factor is that households with a large number of children, even if they are at the same standard of living, can receive more tax exemption benefits.
[48] The Japanese sociologist Masahiro Yamada coined the term "parasite singles" for unmarried adults in their late 20s and 30s who continue to live with their parents.
[49] Since joining the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) in 1996, South Korea's fertility rate has been on the decline.
Landlords require the renters to upfront as much as 70% of the property value as a type of security deposit, then live rent free for the duration of the contract, usually two years.
Recent government caps, aimed at protecting the renters from being victims of price gouging, restricted the profit the landlord can make on renewing the contract.
In the twentieth century, due mainly to Confucian beliefs and a strong desire to sire a son, female fetuses were being aborted.
In addition, the abortion of female fetuses lead to a relative shortage of women, resulting in overall lowerall birthrate in the country.
[55] In July 2011, the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced a 2.4 percent increase in live births in the United Kingdom in 2010.
"[60] A Pew research center study found evidence of a correlation between economic difficulties and fertility decline by race and ethnicity.
[62] Other factors (such as women's labor-force participation, contraceptive technology and public policy) make it difficult to determine how much economic change affects fertility.
[68] The low birth rates in the contemporary United States can possibly be ascribed to the recession, which led families to postpone having children and fewer immigrants coming to the US.
